thanks for the advise tony i am thinking alot of the problems with this car and engine is coming from the fact it has been used and abused in its past and driven by new drivers as thier first car and they haven't cared about it as long as it works i have had cars in the past where i have done all the work on them myself and never had a problem but this one is doing my head in. in the past i had a p55 which i stripped the engine down and rebuilt and had no problems and it ran fantastic but it had been owned by an old lady and had very low miles and had been looked after i am starting to think i have bought a mutt so time i think i should give up on this motor and seriously think about giving it a heart transplant and do it properly by taking the car off the road for a week or 2 and make sure the engine is right before it goes anywhere near the car ie HG, oil seals, gap the cam, 866 cam, 40mm TB, etc etc
but the question i have is how much damage am i likely to do by continueing to drive this car with engine like this while i prep the new engine(1242 8v spi)