[elfer]

That DME command works by electrically heating the wax of the thermostat to make it open on WOT when the water temp alone isn't sufficient to. If you unplug the electrical connector from the thermostat there'll be no power to the heater and you'll remove DME map control from the equation. Do that and go for a drive. If the coolant still sits at 70C like before then it wasn't the map heater. If now it goes up to 97C then it was.

 

[elfer]

Hi all sorry for the confusion. Temp went over a 100 while test driving while I had the radiator fan out. I am assuming this is the reason. Been driving last day or two with fan back in and no overheating.

Still struggling to get to temp while moving. While stop and go or idiling I’m right at 12:00.

This made me wonder. Have you ruled out the fan being on (or on full speed) all the time? On the manual cars it should only come on when needed, commanded by the DME. If you have INPA there's a test you can do where you tell it to spin at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%. If you step through those with the engine off you'll be able to hear when it's on (or you can get out and check) and the pitch will increase with speed. Or you could just start the car with the engine cold* and make sure it isn't spinning.

*question to fellow fanatics: would the AC need to be off too?