[BillC]

Originally Posted by cmartin

Looks like the nyloc nut in the first pic is just, just, hanging on

It's supposed to be a normal nut, but that's what the rebuilder had installed. I just didn't bother swapping them out for correct nuts. No signs of it, or any of the others, coming loose -- not going to worry about it until/unless it becomes an issue.

[BillC]

Rather than making y'all sit through some long, boring description of what I've been working on, I'll just cut to the chase: it's alive!!!!

Now I'll cover the boring stuff....

First, I installed the new muffler and O2 sensor, and connected the sensor to the converter:


Then, I installed the new distributor. I pulled the cap off the old one, took note of where the body and the rotor were pointing, and installed the new one to match.


Then, I installed the ECU and wiring harness. The ECU and ignition controller are mounted on a custom-made plate that bolts to the side of the battery mount like the stock ECU.

They intentionally made the harness extra long, to accommodate different configurations, so in this case there's quite a bit of extra wire tucked around the engine. At some point, if/when I drop the engine again, I may go through it and trim the wires down to a more-appropriate length.

Once the wiring harness was in place, I connected all the various plugs and zip-tied the wiring in place.


Next step was hooking up the vacuum hoses. This setup requires only two vacuum connections, one to the ECU and one to the FPR (Fuel Pressure Regulator), and the kit comes with a tee and small-diameter hose. This left several ports open. I dug into my pile of vacuum plugs, and found most of what I needed to cap-off the unused ports. However, the "F branch" piece needed a plug, but I couldn't find one that would fit. So, I made one out of a leftover piece of 303 stainless:



And, installed:


Before installing the air filter box and the heater hoses, I had my son cycle the ignition on and off to pressurize the fuel system, so I could check for leaks. And, no leaks! At that point, I decided to press my luck and had him start it up. It cranked for a few times and then fired right up!

It was getting to the end of the day, so we shut it down and I finished reassembling everything:


The plan for tomorrow is to download the tuning software, set the timing and then see if I can get it to idle at a reasonable speed. I'll also check the TPS calibration and maybe do a little initial tuning using the O2 sensor.

[BlackTalon]

Great stuff, Bill.

[JmuRiz]

Impressive, good work.

[N0tt0N]

Congratulations! Always a good feeling when the magic works!

[Patrick3000]

Nice job