whoooo, car is now running!! it turned out that the valves were not hitting after all.
we decided to attempt re-timing before changing any parts on the head, turning over by hand we found no "chinging" at all. found the noise to be coming from the starter motor/ring gear. deciding against using cold starter again we primed the deisel header tank with deisel and towed the car to start it, PERFECTO! car starts on the button from cold now but the starter motor chings a bit, not going to kill me...
mass air sensor needs replacing as turbo is a bit intermittent.
my next issue is that i have found oil spluttering out from the intercooler pipe, removed pipe and sure enough there is quite a bit of oil in there. im thinking it can be one of two things, either i have filled the engine with too much oil or the turbo is on its way out, possibly the reason the old engine failed. the reason im not thinking 100% turbo is because the exhaust gasses are completely clear where id expect too see some black smoke??? have found a genuine turbo repair kit quite cheap so may attempt a turbo refurb. any input you can give is much appreciated.