Al, I did not like the warm and cold proximity to the sensor either and found it troublesome to get my bypass adjusted to where I could leave it alone at various speeds. What I did was to plug the bypass inlet to the t-stat housing and reroute the bypass to my exit fitting on the exhaust manifold via a "Y fitting". My gage fluctuations during adjusting of the bypass became easy and I was then getting accurate block temp readings and no longer needed an adjustment once in a while. I found my temps varied by RPM or water flow with the stock plumbing and not with the reroute.
A pic of my set-up was posted some years ago.
Dave Neptune
