I would say, dear Doctor, that you have correctly diagnosed the problem.
Looking forward to your summary report

Nope - more heaping piles of fail in my garage. I attached the choke and pulled the trigger on it tonight - started well enough with the factory settings. Then I adjusted the balance and played with the mixture. I couldn't get it just right, but it wasn't terrible (no stumbling). I ended up at just about full rich. Not a good sign. Whatever.

I put the hood catch on and thought about going for a spin. When I started it up, it rev'ed to 2.5K and stayed there - no idle. WTF. So I fiddled some more and got it to settle down. Pull out and had basically the same as I drove - rev'ed way up, no fun at all. My guess is that I'm going to have to lean them back out again and see what happens - it wasn't doing this before.

Then to end the evening, I noticed a new sound - and not a good one. It sounds like the cam gear is loose and rattling around in the cover. I torqued it down properly and double checked it as I always do. The cam cover has to come off now to see what's up down there. This thing is pissing me right off.

who runs a cam gear cover during shakedown runs anyways?

get fuel injection, throw away silly carbs.

It's a B20 Raz, re; pushrod cam in block, without the cam cover oil goes EVERYWHERE
Craig deep breaths this is the Volvo gods test of you genetic modifications made to the original model. Soon they gods will accept these modifications and improvements and all will run well and forever.

In reality I sympathise with you, my car went through MANY teething pains, persevere and don't get discouraged.

I'm trying, but I've got several big hammers that I could unleash on these damn carbs. The fact that this may be screwing up my holidays is causing lost sleep.

Please read your PM

More information: Nasty engine noise was the water pump pulley had worked it's way loose - now fixed temporarily - permanent fix coming. So the cam gear is fine . I called John Parker today - checked a few things that he suggested. I've got it timed at 10 degrees BTDC with 35 degrees of total timing. This is in his range of OK. He figured it is a vacuum leak, so I bought a couple of cans of quick start and hosed down the carbs (throttle shafts and everywhere else), intake at the carbs, intake at the head, threaded ends of intake, PCV nipple and anywhere else I could think. No change in RPM...no leak?

I set the carbs back to where I had them when Dale was down. I put my vacuum gauge on it at the PCV nipple and measured 14" Hg at idle and when blipped (accounting for the movement of the SU piston) the vacuum would go to 18 - 20 depending on rpm. That sounds fine to me. I've got the wideband calibrated, I'll try that tomorrow.

I'm calling in Rhys Kent of Island Automotion and see what he thinks. He rebuilds them for a living and I may just overnight them to him for a look.

Thanks for all the help guys (on and off-line).