Ok, guys I have searched and looked at postings, but have not seen the exact scenario.

Bad valve seals so I had my heads redone. when putting engine back together, I replaced the plugs, wires, router, dist-cap, pcv valve, removed the smog tubes, plugged the holes on the manifolds, plugged the cat tub, removed all air tubes from car. Put new thirmastat, they decked the heads, shipped the valve springs, and new valve job.

All back together now. Timing is perfect, I don't see any obvious vacuum leaks.

Idles rough, around 7-800 in park, drops to 400-500 at stop lights and when placed in gear, really rough then. The new temp sensor on manifold isn't working. Dash shows no temp 100 degrees, I know this is not right because of the upper radiator hose has flow in it. Could the lack of temp cause really really bad idle? any other ideas. I am about to pull hair out.

 

Decking heads can increase compression by quite a bit. After decking the heads, you would still have needed to use a head gasket that gave you .035 inch distance between piston and head with gaskets installed and compressed, or you wont have enough combustion chamber. High compression without the proper octane or properly applied timing can be a serious issue.

This is a long shot but if your heads have been shortened your pushrods may be holding your valves open.

Another long shot but worth the effort is electrical--you said the coolant temp sensor is NOT working--try and find out why. I fnot the sensor itself, then you could have a bad ground somewhere or a pinched wire from the install. GL

 

I have found the issue.

I suspected from the beginning that I might have gotten to aggressive in tightening my rocker arms. I just didn't want to deal with it so I looked for other possible reasons. At the end of the day- I faced the possibility and decided to obtain some rocker arm covers to plug the oil holes so I would make as little of a mess as possible. (one of the best things I ever purchased by the way) What I found was that the majority of the rockers had to be loosened 6-8 full turns before I got any lash. I correctly set those while the engine was running and now the car runs as smooth as could be.