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For comparison, I recently replaced my water pump and all the rear hoses.
This past weekend I had to drive a 280 mile road trip (one way) to visit my dad. The outside air temperature went from low 90's at the start of my trip up to 102 degress. It bounced from 100-102 for over 100 miles on my outbound leg.
In heavy stop and go traffic (right where I expect the boxster to start hemorrhaging coolant) the needle would climb to the edge of the "0" in 180. Once moving however it would go down a needle width or two.
On the open road I tested out the theory of spinning the engine faster for improved coolant flow. Quite repeatedly, I was able to lower the temp to the right edge of the "8" by running 6th gear. If I down shifted and ran it that way the temp would increase (around the middle of the "0"). Rinse, repeat, I did it several times.
That was not the expected outcome - for me anyway. I faced similar temperatures on the way home and the car behaved perfectly for the entire road trip (another thing I'm not used to).
More surprisingly, I've found that I can run the A/C and it will run cooler even stuck in traffic (right between the "8" and "0"). Again, not expected by me since the condensers for the A/C are in front of the radiators and therefore add to the heat problem - not to mention requiring more effort from the engine to run the compressor.
Also, (and you'll want to verify this on your own) the way I learned it was that increasing the ratio of coolant/water is the wrong direction. Coolant is good at not freezing, but it's not awesome at carrying heat away. That's done by the water.
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