An update: slow progress and a question.
 

Well it's been a lousy couple of weeks for me but here's what's been going on. I still had some oil pressure problems. It would start with great pressure ~100psi then drop down very rapidly after only a minute. My crossover oil line had a small dent, nothing major but enough to be suspisious. I've replaced that and got about the same thing. Well after some head scratching we tested to see if we got any flow past the ext. thermostat into the tank. Nothing. Turns out in our R&R of the thermostat and ext. oil lines turns out the PO had installed the thermostat backwards!!! The larger of the two caps was pointed towards the car! definitly not right. I also pulled the internal thermostat which had previously tested ok. Well it turns out it's not working anymore. Of the three thermostats I have 1 works but it's from a 2.0T and it's orifices are smaller than the 2.4 and 2.7 thermostats that I was using. Will this be ok?

l wouldn`t use it.

That was some crappy news, Tim. I hope you get it sorted soon so we can hear about that great new(ly rebuilt) engine of yours.

Jim,
It's slowly getting sorted out. Next up is that thermostat and leaning out the mixture a little bit. It's running VERY rich right now