thanks to all that posted.
i feel a bit stupid posting this but i thought it might help others that make the same silly mistake
just had a day off so i decided to start from the beginning turns out i had no compression on three cylinders and not alot on the rest so i stripped it down again. once the cams cam off, the valves seated nicely and a bleed down showed good results. i then noticed a few buckets sitting up. turns out the shims weren't seated. we had clamped a tube in place of the cams while we works on the bottom end. there mus have been enough gap to allow the shims to leave their seats and cause the obvious offset between valve, bucket and cam lobe. i count myself lucky i didnt bend a valve as a result.
silly i know, not cheking and reseating the buckets, but i thought id post it to help anyone else who makes the same mistake.
thanks again. Zachery