Thursday night update!
TL:DR Engine now starts and runs quite nicely, have now developed knocking noise...
Longer edition: Pulled the injectors and had a looksee down in 1/2 of the valves, everything looked fine, no spare tools lying around or other miscellaneous items. Pulled all 8 spark plugs and looked into cylinders, everything looked good in there.
Fired the car up and poured some fuel injector cleaner through the intake manifold, knock was still present. We now believe we have figured it out, right now all signs point to either a stuck/plugged up lifter or a collapsed hydraulic lash adjuster. Odd that it never did it when we bought the car.. Thinking that the oil change that we did perhaps free'd up a bunch of crap in the oiling system, and it plugged up a lifter.
Next step: Pull the drivers side valve cover and have a look-see at what is going on in there. Have never removed a valve cover and looked at a valvetrain before, so should definitely be a learning experience. Anyone know how to check for a plugged lifter and/or collapsed lash adjuster??
Other next steps are to get the cooling fan wired up to a switch so that we can idle the car for long periods of time... A functional coolant gauge would be nice as well..
