Gremlins

During the few years the car was moved in and out of garages/storage regularly whilst being repaired and the engine developed a miss.
The engine had previously been silky smooth and quiet when collected from the seller in it's crashed state, so the cause of the miss was self inflicted whilst in our care.
The miss also came and went a few times which made it all the more annoying, especially now that it was roadworthy, had rego and nothing else was stopping it from running around the racetrack - ask Jeff about how well a V8 Soarer runs around Wakefield Park on 7 cylinders...
Countless hours of diagnosing, swapping parts, head scratching and kicking it didn't get rid of the miss so more searhing was in order.
Eventually the miss was tracked down to a carbon gummed up valve which was stuck open!
What else to do but off with the head, clean the valve seat and guide, clean the head/block surfaces, replace the valve and spring, lap the valve, new headgasket and head bolts and put it all back together again - result was no more miss and a quiet silky smooth V8 engine again!