hey i'm new to this forum so i'm just trying to get some help, my car seems to be running hot. i let it sit in the drive way idling and it will get up to around 115, 117 then the fans will kick on and it will drop a bit but it will stick around 115, 117 all the time which is about 5-10 degree from the red which is 125.i changed the thermostat and still the same thing. i'm just wondering if there's a problem with my engine or the guage or if that's normal for the 305 tbi.

 

Ok I assume you live in Canada and those are degrees celcius although I didnt know they coverted it on the guages for Canadian cars. Well anyways.. the weatherchannel.com has a great C-f coverter. So I looked it up. 115 = 239 degrees and 117= 242.6 degrees. I would say that is a little on the high side I dont know what thermostat you have but most cars have either a 180 or 190 -195 thermo's ( 82.22 or 87.77 - 90.55 degrees) my fan turns on about 220 -225 degrees (104.44 - 107.22) but since your fan turns on at 115 then maybe your sending unit (the one in the head with 1 wire) is reading off a little or the temp sensor (usually in the head but 2 wires) is telling the computer to turn on the fan too late. Also it is a good ides to make sure your radiator is clear in the front and back.... has a tendancey to suck leaves and bugs and other things reduceing its coolang effectiveness. Hope this helps

 

That is really hot, also make sure that none of your hoses are collapsing blocking off the flow of water the botom one should have a spring in it so it doesnt collapse..
I also had a problem with my car running hot and I almost sold it for that reason.. It turned out to be a bad thermostat after I replaced it with a brand new one it failed as well then I bought a 450 dollar aluminum radiator and it had the same problem. I removed the thermostat all together and it runs at 160 all day I am going to put another thermostat in again one day but I was just letting you know that I bought one brand new and it was bad.
another piece of advice is I bought an after market temp gauge from auto meter and it showed that my factory gauge was off by 20 degrees or more at times..

 

he has a later model LO3... those didnt have computer controlled engine thermostats... its all about the thermostat... it sounds like yours is either not working, or a little broken... its on the passenger side of your engine on the cylender head... just do a for "fan switch" or "overheat problem" and you will be bound to be led somewhere that has already addressed this issue