It Runs!
Well, I finally got the motor to start. Thanksso much to everyone here for all the suggestions. It really helped keep me going in the garage. I was really annoyed at first. I think I had a combination of problems that were adding up to my no-start condition before. I ended up removing the head, and double checking everything to find my problem. It was really confusing and I didn't really feel like I was finding the problem because everything seemed to check out. But here is what I finally did to fix the problems.
While the head was off, I put some STP engine oil treatment on the cylinder walls and turned the motor over to get the goop down in the rings. I suspected that my piston rings were quite dry. I can't even remember if I oiled them during assembly or not, but the motor sat for over a year, maybe 2 years since I assembled the shortblock. I wanted to lubricate the rings, and add something really goopy to seal up the rings enough to get the motor to build a "little" compression. I was hoping that if I could get the motor to start and run, that the dynamic compression would be sufficient to keep it running long enough to build some heat and seat the rings. STP is so old school, and I'm definitely not a snake oil user. But It was just the ticket for this application. My leakdown was 60-70% on every cylinder before. Though, I have doubts about my leakdown tester now. I didn't do a leakdown after lubing the rings, but I did a compression test once the head bolted on and my compression was back! I suspect lubricating the rings would have given me a decent leakdown test, but it was baffling how I could be losing that much pressure from just dry rings. Even my engine machinist was totally confused. He thought a motor with no rings in it would have at most 50% leakdown.
Second, and probably most important to good compression was a cam issue.
I think I might have had the cams installed backwards before. Embarrassing. I wasn't sure, but I double checked the markings when re-assembling the motor to make sure the PZ1 was in the intake side and the PZA was in the exhaust side. After seeing the results I'm thinking I might have had this wrong before. You get no compression with the cams in the wrong sides. Though it didn't explain my poor leakdown, it did probably eliminate the compression.
I put it together and had 110psi on every cylinder. Not perfect, but it was a motor that was never run. Good enough to make it start I hoped. When I finally bolted it all together and set the timing close to where it needed to be, the motor fired on the 3rd try. The ignition timing was way off on the first 2 trys. The head mounted distributor has to be turned sideways with the wires pointing toward the passenger side to find the right timing on the 16v motor. This is still the 8v LH 2.2 distributor and it worked perfect turned sideways. There was even a bolt hole there to fix the timing.
It ran quite good, I let it run for 30 minutes at about 1500-2000 rpm. It went perfect, no leaks, no weird noises, just pure VOLVO music! I am going to change the oil this morning and try to find a muffler shop to re-connect my exhaust system so that I can really start the break-in.
I'm excited. Another T-bricks 16v turbo will be on the road soon. I'll try and get some pictures in a week or so after I move and get my camera out of storage.