Cooling system help---please read

[swb85]

I'd love some insight here, please read the whole thing. My cooling system consists of aluminum high flow water pump, 180* stat, stock brass radiator, 16" electric fan with shroud. Everything was perfect last summer and my cooling system worked great. It ran right at 180* on the highway with the fan off. In traffic, my fan kicked on at 195* and brought the temp down to 175* within a minute or two. I could sit in traffic on a 100* day with the a/c on high and never see north of 195*. The cooling system actually worked so well that during cold months, it struggled to warm up on my morning commute.

Two months ago I had a head gasket leaking coolant (externally) all over my motor, so I changed from a Mr. Gasket 5800 to a Felpro 1014. Immediately following the swap, I noticed that it didn't struggle to warm up in the cold like it used to. Now that the weather is starting to break I'm getting worried. It's only 50* outside, and it's running way hotter now. After 5 minutes of highway driving, the temp is all the way up to 195* and climbing. As soon as I get off the highway and kick my fan on manually, it brings the temp back down to 180*, although it takes longer to do so than it used to. I've tried replacing the thermostat as well as adding a bottle of Water Wetter to the system......absolutely no change.

The ONLY thing that has changed in the system is the head gaskets, and although I'm baffled as to why, that has to be the reason my cooling system is struggling now. I REALLY REALLY don't want to have to change head gaskets again. I'm running hot on the highway when I've got tons of airflow going through the radiator, but in traffic with a single fan running it's staying cool. I just don't get it. Any thoughts/suggestions are appreciated. For comparison, here's the picture of the original head gasket:


And here's a picture of the gasket that's in there now:


The cooling holes are slightly different.....enough to make this big of a change in system performance?????