Yeah definitely, I'll be changing the breather pipe, HT leads and whilst I am at it the distributor cap tomorrow anyway.

Around a month back the cam belt, water pump etc was all changed and the timing was done (Ignition and cam) and as I say the car runs sweet when idling at 1250-1300. Its only when trying to get it down to a more normal idle of 1000 that its started playing up. Other owners i've all spoken to all have their xr3is sitting nicely at 900rpm or so

I wonder if the high idle could have been compensating the timing by idling high?

(And yeah them HT shocks hurt like a ***** lol)