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Somewhere near Snetterton per chance?

Strangely enough no, I bought it on EBay two years ago and a friend who lives in Rackheath picked it up and stored it for me.
I never expected to have to use it but luckily for me I got it at the right time.
Who would have thought that an engine block would become warped???

I'm a few years on the wrong side if sixty years old. I've restored a variety of cars including Rovers dated from 1947 to 1978; that's steel blocks and aluminium blocks in the V8 versions. I've never come across a warped block before let alone heard of it happening.

I would suspect that you may have a crack between bores 3 and 4. A cracked block isn't a common occurrence but it isn't unknown either. A crack can appear around the exhaust valve are - simply because that's where most trouble usually appears. A crack can also occur in the cylinder/water jacket area - if you're positive that the head/gasket is ok then I'd suspect somewhere around the water jacket as you're getting water in the bores?

A crack can be invisible to the naked eye. Hot gases or coolant still manage to find their way through the crack and cause no end of headaches .. Have you considered using 'Engineer's Blue'? It's on Ebay .. Simply rub the engineer's blue into the metal and then wipe off. Any engineer's blue that remains is embedded in the crack .. and shows where the crack is.

You seem to have done a lot of work - don't give up. You'll find the trouble eventually. It may not sound much of a consolation - but the Vauxhall engine is 'meccano'. Easily fixed (or replaced..) and pales into insignificance when you have similar problems on the likes of a 4.7 V8 Jeep or V12 Jaguar.

Much has changed in the 45 years or so I played around with engines. Decades ago a quick fix for a head gasket was to shove in a few cans of Radweld .. which never worked for long. Nowadays the modern 'head fixes' are light years ahead of what we used to use - have a look on Ebay for 'Steel Seal' which has a good reputation and is now being used by the trade for cylinder head fixes.

Good luck. You'll get there eventually!

Thanks for the advice, I have decided to scrap my engine and rebuild another one.

I drained the new oil out the other night and it was white almost like milk and that was only after running it for 10 minutes so I think you are right there must be a crack somewhere.

To be honest I have had enough of it and just want to start with another engine.