Cooling system.

[Turbo Haraune]

I have just filled my cooling system whit coolant today. it took 16 liters to top it up.!?
Jacked up the front end and bleed out all airbubbles from the hoses. i have two airlocks on the coolant hoses but they where "cancelled" due to the extreme angle of the car. so im pretty sure all air is gone.
Had the engine idling for a good 20 minutes but i still couldnt feel any hot water in the radiator up front. The output pipe from the engine where hot but it started to loose temp just a metre from the engine.
The oilfiltre was also hot so the engine had enough temprature for the thermostate to open i think.?
Maby i should mention that outside temp was about 0 degrees celcius.
I still havent connected any gauges so i dont know for sure how hot the engine was. but idling dont create much heat anyway.

When is the water supposed to start circulating? is it doing it all the time?
Is there any original location on the engine block for the coolant sensor?or is it supposed to be at the inlet of the radiator?

Any suggestions?
(the engine is the EJ20 Turbo)((and yeah it spitts 2foot flames when the dumpvalve opens))