To close on this issue. After two long drives (20+ minutes) with the bail flipped up, I had to add about another cup of coolant after the first drive, and none after the second drive. (My conclusion is that I did something incorrect and left some air in the system even using the Airlift. I wonder about the hose that draws in the coolant. Maybe I should prefill with coolant? That would be one source of air right there, but not a quart worth). I then drove to Savannah, GA (180 miles) and did a 2 day DE at Roebling Road Raceway with Florida Crown PCA, consisting of four 20 minute instructed sessions. It was cool out, and during the first 7 sessions (4 on Saturday and the first 3 on Sunday) the needle never moved off the 180 mark. This is with lots of WOT and speeds of 120+ MPH. I did two things though: I drove the whole track in 4th gear, except down the front straight when I went into 5th. During the braking I would go back to 4th. This was good and there was plenty of torque, and I was taking it easy, shifting into 5th at 100 MPH so I wasn't super high on the revs. I checked the coolant after each session and when I got home last night, it was right at the full mark every time, so I believe this issue is resolved.
On the last session on Sunday, I experimented with downshifting to 3rd in the braking zone leading into turn 4. This gave me a little (actually a lot) more torque and I was able to pop out of the corners especially out of turn 7 which is a 180 degree right turn that leads uphill. After turn 7 I would be back in 4th leading into 8/9 and then down the front straight and back to 5th. I was on it hard, and in this configuration the needle would go up to the 12:00 position and slightly beyond and touch into the 0 but it would start to go back down as I progressed down the front straight (that front straight is where I do most of my checking of the gauges). The only other time it went above the 180 mark was sitting on the grid waiting to go and there was an incident so we were stuck there for around 10 minutes. It crept above but as soon as we started moving it went right back down. I guess this is because there was no air going over the radiators and temps were too low for the fans to be on?
Fast lap of the weekend and this URL takes you to the videos for my final session, which was the most consistent and had my 3 fastest lap times of the weekend.
Track Attack
You can see where I caught up to a Cayman at the end of lap 5 and was stuck behind him until he finally let me around at the beginning of lap 8. I was stuck behind this same car during other sessions of the weekend. I guess I could charge up his tail a little harder but in the faster corners is where I could least afford to have to make a big change to deal with him suddenly slowing down. One thing I worked on during this session was backing off and trying to make a run up as I approached a passing zone.