One thing led to another and I found myself admiring the seats produced by ex-NASCAR driver Randy LaJoie.  His website The Joie of Seating convinced me that this might be a good way to go.  Even better news was that his “store” is right on my way to work in Charlotte.  So I stopped in to visit.  The part I liked best about this seat is that they custom fit it to your body.  They have a large adjustable chair where you sit and they measure your various key dimensions such as your width at your hips and shoulders and your height to the top of your shoulders and eyes.  The eye dimension is important, as the seat has a head restraint which is positioned such that you can look over it as your turn your head to look through the next corner.  Although their bread and butter customer is the circle track guy, the seat is very useful in a road course environment.  As I found when I received my custom fabricated seat, it fit me like a glove.  The feeling is very secure.  Here are some pictures of the seat.  The head restraint is not installed in these pictures.  By the way, the TIG welding is beautiful.

Next I had to get the seat installed.  As every car is unique and the Porsche 944 was not a car that LaJoie’s staff had dealt with much, I was pretty much on my own, although they instruct me as to the general requirements, which were to construct a base that held the  the seat back vertical and then tie the seat back to the harness bar.  I found that with the seat back vertical, my butt and thighs were sloped upward about 20 degrees.  I also found out pretty quickly that if I put the seat where my old one had been, I would not be able to get out of the car.  My short legs (30″ inseam) placed me too far forward for me to get through the cage opening.  So I had to go another route.

I had to lower the seat as much as possible, to allow egress through the cage with my helmet on.  I had to move it as far back as possible for the same reason.  I moved it back until I was reaching the limits of being able to reach the shifter. I made a bracket to attach the seat to the floor.  It has some adjustment to the rear if someone with longer legs than mine were to drive the car.  It can’t go forward any more.

As seen in the above picture, I place some heavy angle irons into the floorboard.  These accept the seat bracket.  A series of holes allow adjustment to the rear.

I ran 3/8″ all-thread rod from the 2 bungs in the seat to the harness bar.  I drilled the harness bar, inserted small 1/2″ tube sections (effectively bungs), which I welded out, then used more of the 1/2″ tube sections as spacers to provide compression resistance.  The rods are sectioned to match the adjustment of the seat so it can be moved to the rear.  Note that the seat has mounting bungs in the rear. These are recessed and allow the end of the all thread rod with a nut to not protrude into your back. Similar bungs are in the base for the mounting bracket.

The following 2 pictures show the finished product. In these pictures, the head restraint is installed.

I had to move all my bolted seat belt attachments to get the proper angles for the lap belt and crotch belts per the Schroth specs.  Fortunately, the harness bar was still in a good position to angle the belts per the Schroth requirements.

Finally, I had to put in pedal extensions, since with the seat is so far to the rear my feet were about 4″ shy of the pedals.  These are adjustable.  This gave me the chance to move the gas pedal to a more favorable position for heel and toe.

All in the all, this was quite an effort.  I think I’ve got about 6 work days invested. But I’m very happy with the results. I can’t wait to try it out at my next track event!

The 2 tracks that I have used are Carolina Motorsports Park and Virginia International Raceway.  Both are great tracks, in their own way.  I spend a lot of time watching my mirrors at VIR and giving passbys to much faster cars on the long straights, which is a little bit of a drag.  Not so such much at CMP due to shorter straights.  My driving skills are still improving and I am now starting to find other newer cars that I can hang with in the twisty sections so that is very satisfying.

My 2nd event at CMP ended early when the right rear halfshaft came disconnected at the hub end CV joint.  I am pretty sure I can blame that one squarely on myself as I am not sure I fully torqued the fasteners.  I went back with the Stage 8 fastener kit from Ideola Garage.  This seems to be a well engineered solution to this problem.  I also like the fact that I can get an immediate visual indication of pending problems while at the track by just looking at the keeper plates.

After my first and second runs I found a lot of suspension bolts that were coming loose.  I bought a full complement of nylon and metal locking nuts from McMaster Carr and went through everything in the area of suspension.  I also put white paint on every fastener.  This gives me a visual reference for checks at the track.  Since I have done this, loosening issues have virtually gone away.

I am by no means a suspension guru but I have done a lot of reading on the subject.  In future posts I want to get into some suspension issues that I have worked through.

Last, at my last track event I shared the car with my daughter Frances.  That was a great father/daughter experience for us both.

Before I reassembled the head, I had a task to perform.  When I took off the metal housing where the thermostat and heater hose attach, one of the bolts sheared off in its hole.  I tried to centerdrill the bolt remnant and take it out with an Easy Out.  I have never had any luck with an Easy Out and this time was no exception.  I have learned to not lean on an Easy Out very hard, as they will just break off and then you have a bigger problem.  I continued to try and center drill the bolt but such small drills want to walk on you and pretty soon I was chewing up sound aluminum around the hole.  I finally got the bolt remnant out but the remaining hole was pretty ugly.  I decided to insert a Helicoil. If you are not familiar with Helicoils, their website does a much better job of explaining them than I can.  For really critical connections on old Porsche 911 magnesium crankcases, I see that a lot of folks use a Timesert product.  For a water hose connection, this would have been overkill.

After I got the holes repaired, I proceeded to install the valves.  There are some free height measurement checks of the valve springs in the shop manual that you can verify.  Mine were close enough.  There are also some compressed height measurements that are controlled by shims under the spring seats.  I checked these as best as I could, with measurement being problematic in the confined space available.  I used a dial caliper, using the part that extends from the end, to make this measurement.  All were within spec.

I don’t have an official valve spring tool but rather use my press and a special wood block that I made that fits over the stem and allows access to insert the collets.  It takes a little longer but the price is right. Once all the valves were installed with their springs I put the valve stem seals over the ends.

I said previously that no work was done on the block but I did have the machine shop clean out the tapped holes were the long head studs go.  I had purchased new head studs for my previous engine rebuild.  I removed them from the old block and installed them into the new block.  With the holes cleaned out by the machine shop, I was able to install them with my fingers.

It was time to install the head gasket and the head.  In retrospect, I wish that I had had the machine shop take a very small skim cut on the top of the block to clean it up.  I cleaned it up as best as I could with solvents and non-abrasive products before I inserted the pistons, etc.  Regardless, you want the aluminum surfaces of the block and the head to be as smooth and clean as possible to ensuring good sealing with your head gasket.

I used as “standard” Porsche headgasket that comes with the top end gasket kit that I got from Paragon Products.  As far as I can tell, it does not require any special sealants.  Next I carefully lowered the head onto the 10 studs and brought it down onto the head gasket.  Then installed the proper washers and nuts on the studs.  The Porsche shop manual shows a procedure for tightening the head gasket which is what I followed.

Now it was time for the cam tower. I had replaced on the gaskets and seals on my cam tower on the previous rebuild.  Here is one area where I took a little bit of a risk.  The shop manual recommends that you replace the hydraulic lifters if you have shredded a bearing.  I would assume the fear is that some small metal particles introduced into the oil system made it up to the head and into the lifters.  I decided to re-use my lifters.  I had left them soaking in a pan of oil since I took them out.  Back in they went.

When I did my first rebuild I purchased a set of extended length metric allen keys, the kind that are a straight shaft that ends in an 3/8″ drive socket.  I do not know how you would reach the internal fasteners in the cam tower without this tool.  Of course, before you tighten down the cam tower the engine must be “in time” i.e. the crank should be on top dead center and the cam drive gear at the front of the cam tower should be lined up with the proper timing mark.  Otherwise you will certainly crush a valve or 2 as you tighten down the cam tower and extend the 2 valves that are “up on their cam”.

From here forward, your attention will turn to the ancillary items that attach to the engine.  I want to mention the oil cooler.  The N/A 944 engine does not have an external oil cooler like the turbo.  It has an oil to water cooler that attaches on the lower right hand side of the engine, below the oil filter.  For an engine that has had a bearing failure, Porsche recommends that you replace the little heat exchanger unit inside the cooler, I would gather due to the confluence of oil with metal bits and small passages.  I did but it was an “ouch” moment when I got the price. In this case, better safe than sorry.  During reassembly of the oil cooler, be careful to ensure that the oil pressure relief valve is aligned and free to activate.

Other external items of course include the front timing belts.  This being my 3rd time with timing belts I was an old hand by now.  I used the tension tool that I got from Arnnworks.  It works really well!  Of course, before you can install the belts, you have to install the balance shafts and their covers.  Nothing special about this step that I can tell.  Just follow the Porsche manual.

Other external items installed where the intake manifold, exhaust manifold, motor mounts, water pump, oil filler tube, alternator, clutch, and bellhousing.  During all this work, I had the engine attached to my hoist and balanced on my work bench.  This sure beats having to bend over and work on it while it is on the floor!

Finally I was ready to install the engine in the car.  This part has been difficult for me in the past, as far as getting the engine to go that last inch as the end of the driveshaft has to engage the pilot bearing in the flywheel.  This time, since I had taken out the torque tube and differential, I left the torque tube installation loose and pointing downward.  I guess this must have been helpful because the engine engaged completely with little fuss.  I finished hooking up the engine, added oil and coolant, and fired it up.  It started easily with no bad noises so I was happy.  It was on to final assembly in prep for my first track session!

The first thing I did was clean the block very carefully, first with soapy water, then with aerosol brake clean.  The block had been hot dipped at the machine shop but otherwise it had not required any work.  As part of cleaning the block, I punched out the two plugs at the end of the long oil gallery that runs the length of the block.  I ran water and brake clean through this path and confirmed that fluid exited from all the correct points to oil the crank and the head.  Then I put in new plugs.

After mounting the block upside down in the engine stand, I installed the crank.  The old crank had been damaged when the rod bearing spun.  Rather than turning down the crank journals and installing non standard bearings, I had the machine shop magnaflux, clean, and polish a spare crank that I had.  I mounted this crank with new bearings onto the block and mounted the crank girdle. Before this assembly, I put Plastigage on each bearing journal (except for the one with the one piece circular bearing).  I torqued the crank girdle, then took things back apart to check the squish on the Plastigage.  The bearing to journal gaps were within specs.  I also checked endplay at the center thrust bearing using a dial gauge.  This was also in spec.  For the final mounting of the crank girdle I applied the special orange Locktite as specified in the shop manual.  I was very sensitive to this step, as this was the area that caused a failure in my last rebuild.  I also mounted the rear oil seal on the crank prior to final assembly.

Next it was time to mount the pistons, rings, rods, and rod bearings.  I cleaned the gunk off the piston domes using a mild abrasive wheel and brake clean.  I mounted the new rings in the cylinder bores and checked ring gaps.  As with my previous rebuild, the compression rings came with the correct end gap (you check it by putting a ring in the cylinder bore and checking the gap with feeler gauges) but the oil scraper rings were a little too big and had to be shortened a schosh. (A schosh is more than a tad but less than a wee bit!).  Using a ring compressor, I inserted each piston/ring assembly into a lubricated bore.  At the other end, I mounted one rod bearing half in the end of the rod and carefully guided the rod over the crankshaft journal.  This is much easier if you do the 2 where the crank journal is most accessible and the rotate the crank 180 deg to do the other 2.  I also checked each bearing with Platigage to check clearance.  All were within spec.  I used the new type knurled nuts on the rod ends and tightened per the shop manual.  Every step of the way in this process I checked the crank to make sure it turned easily. No problems there.

At this point you are almost done with the bottom end.  Carefully mount the oil pickup tube and its gasket, as well as the oil return tube, which on my engine does not have a gasket.  Mount the oil pump on the front of the engine.  Reference to the Porsche parts diagram for the engine is vital to determine the correct placement and size of oil seals, spacers, washers, etc on the front of the crankshaft at the oil pump.

Next I found my oil pan and cleaned it really well using the same process I used on the block.  I mounted the oil pan and its gasket and torqued the various fasteners around its perimeter.  At this point, the bottom end is pretty much done.  I mounted the flywheel but deferred on the bell housing and clutch to later, as it interferes with my engine stand.

The first thing I did was have a full cage installed in the car.  This work was done by Chris Schimmel at Competition Cages, in Hillsborough, NC.  See my post on that work here.

After I got the car back from Chris, I put it up on the lift and proceeded to pull the front and rear suspension, the torque tube, transaxle, and the gas tank.  My first job was to clean out the gas tank.  I had purchased a gas tank repair kit from POR-15.  This kit includes a cleaner, a rust neutralizer, and a sealant.  The full kit would be appropriate for a tank that had pinholes.  Upon inspection, my tank wasn’t that bad so I just used the cleaner, which will remove varnish and dried gas gunk.  Although my restoration side always wants to bead blast and repaint everything I touch, in this case the paint on the gas tank was in good shape and it is pretty well hidden from sight anyway.  After drying out the tank overnight with a hair dryer, I put it back into the car.  I had replaced the sump screen or “sock” last year.  After being cleaned off, it was still in good shape.

Normally the gas tank vents to the charcoal canister in the front of the car.  I had previously disposed of the canister and left the tube to it open to the air.  I had noticed at track events that a vacuum was forming in the tank.  There was a whoosh of inflowing air when I released the fuel cap.  I confirmed that the vent lines (there are 2 of them) were clear.  I used some hardware and fittings to tee the 2 vent lines into a single line.  I drilled a hole over top of the cap and put in a bulkhead fitting that connects to the vent hose.  So now the tank vents just above the gas cap.

I inspected the torque tube and transaxle.  Everything seemed to be in good shape.  I had to purchase a 17mm hex key socket (not a common item in my toolbox!) to get the fill and drain plugs out.  I refilled the transaxle with Mobil1 75/90W gear oil.  I evaluated the shift linkage.  I replaced the shift lever, the plastic bushing at its base, and the rubber O rings at the transaxle end.  I temporarily reattached the shift lever to the torque tube and confirmed that the linkage was working properly.

I pressure washed everything and painted the torque tube with rust converter paint that I purchased from Eastwood.  I then turned my attention to the torsion bar tube, trailing arms, and rear hubs.  First I dis-assembled everything and pressure washed the metal parts.  Since bead blasting aluminum parts gives such immediate satisfaction to the eye, I did so to the torsion tube chassis mount.  Everything else got a coat of Eastwood rust converter.  I then turned by attention to the rear hub bearings.  The directions on Clarks Garage  were sufficient to understand how to do the job.  You can probably do it with just a heavy vice, hammers, and punches.  It is easier with a press.  I had a bad moment when I realized that the bearing clearance was established with snap rings of various thicknesses.  Fortunately, nothing had changed since the factory did it and the same snap ring they had installed then gave me a satisfactory clearance.

Somewhere during this process, I decided to replace all of the rubber bushings with polyurethane ones.  I ordered most of the bushings I needed from Powerflex USA.  They didn’t offer the bushings for the torsion tube carrier, so I got those fabricated from delrin from Weltmeister via Paragon Products.    I believe that the poly or delrin bushings are legal for Spec944.  Full metal bushings are not.

Getting the trailing arm bushings out was difficult with hammers, chisels, and saws.  I had another bad moment when the new bushing appeared to be too big.  I finally discovered that the outer metal sleeve of the original bushing was still in place.  Once I got that out, the bushing fit fine.

The torsion tube carrier bushings (inner and outer) didn’t lend themselves to any obvious means of extraction.  I tried burning them off with a propane torch.  They just laughed at me!  The final solution was a tool in my arsenal that I fear and respect, that being my Mikita electric grinder with an 8″ wire wheel and no guard.  A true implement of mass destruction, this is the only tool that I have found effective for removing undercoating and certain types of paint.  I tackled these bushings, which fortunately are not encased in steel shells.  A blizzard of abraded rubber bits ensued, much like the clag that build up on the outside of corners at the track.  Eventually every bit of the bushings lay on the ground and the shaft was bare.  Victory!

It was time to re-assemble the torsion bars, carriers, trailing arms, and hubs.  But one job remained.  I welded a tab on the end of the torsion bars to enable their quick removal.  This and a matching hole in the fender allow me to remove the torsion bars in a matter of seconds.  I installed the bars and mounted some tires and lowered the car to the ground.  Not that I was trying for this look but I had a real lowrider!  I think the ground clearance was about 2″.  I lifted the car back up and reset each bar very easily.  This time the ride height was in the ball park.  Final setting of the ride height remains for after the engine and other significant weight components are added to the car.

In my next article I will write about checking the camber and toe characteristics of the rear suspension, as well as establishing a centerline for the suspension and subsequent alignment.

Interestingly enough, when I started up the cold 944 and drove it off the trailer, everything seemed fine.  The next weekend, I started it up and after it was warmed up a little the knocking noise appeared again at light throttle.  At that point, I decided it was time to start my winter R&R effort.

In one very long Saturday effort I had the engine pulled and torn down.  I found that the #2 rod bearing had definitely spun.  I had never seen a spun bearing before but it was pretty obvious. The “tangs” on the bearing shell that locate it were torn off and the bearing shell was worn down to a reduced thickness.  The journal on the crankshaft was also scored.

I also suspected that I had overheated the engine in my last session at VIR.  I checked the cylinder head with a precision straight edge.  I found it to be warped about 0.006″ at the #2 combustion chamber.  This may not sound like much but it is 3 times the Porsche allowable spec value.

My premise is that the head was warped at VIR, then when I got the engine up to temperature at CMP I had a head gasket breakdown that introduced water, combustion gases, and oil to each other in a very negative way!  I’ll never know for sure.

I did a little research and decided to trust my machine shop work to T-Hoff in Raleigh, NC.  I had 2 good used crankshafts so they are simply going to evaluate the best one and clean it up to put into service.  They are going to do a light skim cut on the head to get it flat.  They are going to put in new valve guides and do a 3 angle valve job.

In the meantime, I am going through the entire drivetrain and suspension.

A well known and respected fabricator of cages in my area is Chris Schimmel.  His fabrication business is Competition Cages, in Hillsborough, NC.

It turns out that Chris had installed the original rollbar.  He was more than happy to complete the job.  We decided to go with NASCAR door bars.  These basically bow outward into the door cavity, providing more side impact strength.  I also went with a bar across just under the dash, which is not required by SCCA or NASA but I felt it would keep me and the engine separate from each other, God forbid!

I am very pleased with Chris’ work. Now I need to apply some paint.

For my first event, I selected something low key.  I signed up for a 1 day event at Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP).  This event is sponsored by their in-house DE and solo track event organization, Turn One.  This event was on a Wednesday so I played hooky from work and spent the day checking my car out.  All went well.  I subsequently signed up for a Turn One event 10 days later.  This was a Saturday/Sunday event.  Again, all went well.  BTW, the Wednesday event was a great value as they only had 2 run groups so I got in six 1/2 hour sessions that day.  The weekend event was more like a traditional DE, with 4 run groups and four 1/2 sessions per day.  CMP is a great course.  Check it out if you can.

What I was really looking forward to was a Tar Heel Sports Car Club (THSCC) event at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in early September.  This was a 3 day (Fri-Sat-Sun) event on the full course at VIR.  Although I have had my E-Type out on the North Course several times, this would be my first time on the full course.  I will note that the THSCC puts on a first rate DE event.

The event at VIR was just a whole lot of fun.  My instructor was great (he drove an early 911) and we really pushed me and the 944 as the weekend went on.  The 944′s neutral handling characteristics gave me great confidence.  The brakes were also outstanding.  Obviously, with a N/A car, the acceleration was not neck snapping but I am a beginner at this so I felt fine with the package I had as a learning tool.  BTW, I am running on Fuzion ZRi tires, 225 width at all 4 corners.  I think I mentioned before but the car weighed about 2350 pounds dry and front to rear weight split is almost exactly 50:50.  The springs and sway bars are very stock.

One nice thing about the VIR events is that a professional photographer comes and takes a zillion shots all weekend of all the cars.  You can buy just one photo or do what I did, which is buy a disk with every image they took that has your car in it. Following is a sample of some of my favorite shots.

So after many minutes of idling I decided the loss of oil pressure was for real.  I will note in all this time, I heard no strange noises.  No lifter clatter, no knocking, no ticking.  Just no pressure.

Swapping in a different pressure sending unit did not help.  I took off the oil filter.  It was dry.  Once upon a time, I had a car with a new oil filter with a blockage so I put on another filter.  No pressure.  Next I started the car briefly with the oil filter removed.  No oil.  I reviewed Rennlist forums extensively for ideas.  One idea was priming the oil pump by pouring oil down the filter bracket.  I did this multiple times, including spinning the engine by hand both forwards and backwards.  No improvement.  Some threads pointed toward the pressure relief valve as being a potential culprit. I took the small screwed cover off the valve and withdrew the spring and the valve plunger.  Everything seemed to be in order.  Although it is very hard to get to with the engine installed, I took off the oil/water heat exchanger.  I cranked the engine a little more.  No oil came gushing out.

Becoming desperate and very confused, I dropped the oil pan looking for issues like an oil pick-up tube that had come loose.  Everything looked shipshape.  I checked the torque on the crankshaft bolt.  No issues there.  I took the crankshaft bolt out and inspected the spacers that drive the oil pump.  Everything looked good. Eventually I took off the oil pump.  I set up a rig with a drill motor to bench test the pump.  It would suck and exhaust a stream of oil when spun by the drill motor.

At some point, I decided to use a Mighty Vac to draw a vacuum on the intake port to the oil pump, with the pickup tube screen setting in a pan of oil.  The first sign of a tangible problem was that I could not get oil to draw up into the tube. I didn’t know what kind of vacuum it took to prime the pump but a Mighty Vac will generate a pretty good suction.  I had made a temporary blanking plate to go over the oil pump inlet area on the block, with a fitting for a vacuum line.  I inspected everything carefully but could see no fault.

Up to this point all the work had been done with the car on a lift but with the engine in the car.  Due to all of the time spent with the engine at idle and no oil flow, I was pretty sure that the various bearings were now suspect.  I decided to pull the engine.

Once I had the engine out I put it on my engine stand.  I decided to remove the crank.  Of course the first step is to remove the crank girdle.  Finally, I found the proverbial smoking gun.  Remember that JB Weld job I did in the area where the balance shaft bearing had blown out? (Link to JB Weld article) I couldn’t believe my eyes but there were obvious signs of a leak path from the oil pump supply gallery back into the sump.  In effect, the pump was sucking air through this leak path rather than pulling oil through the pickup tube.  Even more exasperating was that the leak path was not through the JB Weld repair area but rather on the opposite side of the gallery, where my file had roughened up the contact surface of the block to the girdle.  It’s hard to see but here are some photos I took.

The evidence does not jump right out at you but in this and the following pics, there are 2 places in the space between the oil gallery and the sump where you can see evidence of oil seepage.

Some of you will surely wonder if I prepped and sealed this surface correctly.  I also wonder about this point. I followed the directions of the shop manual and used the required Locktite sealant.  It is hard to believe that this sealant was so sensitive to the file marks.  It does make some sort of sense that the failure could occur after several hours of running the engine.  But what a strange failure mode!

I was anxious to get on with life so I checked around and decided to buy a used engine from DC Auto, which is fortunately about  1 1/2 hours drive from my house.  They fixed me up with a used engine out of a 1984 944.

The used engine had leaks at the various timing and balance belt seals so I did a R&R on the belts and seals.  I also decided to put in a new set of rod bearings.  I put on my cleaned up oil pan with the sump baffle and my cleaned up cam tower.  So in effect, I installed a “short block” and put on all of my existing ancillary parts.  Being my 2nd engine effort in a few months, this effort went much faster due to my new found experience.  Once again, I struggled with getting the engine to mate with the torque tube shaft but finally everything was together and in good shape.

I had great trepidation as I fired this new engine up for the first time but there were no issues this time.  Except for noisy lifters, which I now understood to be normal.  The noise subsided in a short while.

So I was back on the road again, so to speak.  Not a very happy experience but an educational one.  I was thankful that the oil pressure problem occurred at home and not at some expensive track weekend.  I looked forward to getting the 944 on the track.

The following pictures are deceptively simple.  I had a bear of a time getting the engine seated correctly on the shaft from the torque tube.  Yes, I used a centering tool when I installed the clutch.  But it took forever to get the shaft to line up with the splines in the clutch plate and then even more time getting the shaft to engage the pilot bearing.  If anyone has some tips in this regard, please let me know.

A couple of comments:

The clear tube shown in the above picture is coming from a “steam vent” drilled and tapped at the back of the head.  This is allowed by 944Spec rules.  I bought the kit from Lindsey Racing.

The alternator as shown uses the stock bracket for the pivot mounting and a homemade tension adjustment piece.  I subsequently realized that I couldn’t use the stock air filter housing with the alternator mounted in this position.  I wound up buying a Porsche OEM A/C delete bracket, which mounts the alternator much lower and clears the stock air filter housing.  I bought the bracket from Paragon.

I can’t remember the specifics right now but something caused me to have to remove the oil filler assembly subsequently to get at something behind it.

Obviously, the above photos were taken before I got the car painted!  After I got the engine into position, much time was spent getting the wiring hooked up and getting everything in the engine compartment shipshape.  But eventually, I reached the point where the engine was ready to fire up.  So with some trepidation, I gave it the juice.

First I established that it would crank, with the fuel injection disabled.  Next I pulled the fuel injection rail and confirmed that I was spraying fuel from all of the injectors.  They were firing OK.

So finally I attempted to start the car.  To make a long story short, the engine would fire, idle badly, then die.  I spent a long day checking all sorts of possibilities, with no luck. I went to bed on a Sunday night very dis-spirited.  I have a hard time sleeping when there is a problem that needs solving.  I remember getting out of bed at 4 am, going out to my parts car, pulling the ECU, and switching it into the car.  It fired immediately and ran smoothly!  Wow!  Oil pressure was good, although there was a horrible racket from the lifters, which went away eventually.  I went to work that morning in a much better mood.  Reconstructing, I remembered that the previous owner had given me an extra ECU with the car.  I had somehow installed that one and it turned out to be bad.  Oh well, all’s well that ends well.

The next weekend I did another once over on the car and identified a number of small issues to be dealt with, mostly loose bolts in the suspension, etc.  I did a rough alignment.  On Sunday, I took the car out for its first test drive.  I drove it about 1/2 hour with no problems.

The next weekend, I took the car out for a more vigorous test drive, on my local backroad test track.  This consisted of an hour of heavy acceleration and braking, combined with much weaving back and forth, trying to stress the car relatively close to the house, rather than at the track.  The car did fine.  I parked it for the week as it was back to work.

The following weekend I went out planning to make another endurance run of a few hours.  I started the car.  WTF, no oil pressure!  Being in denial, I let it idle for a few minutes waiting for pressure to build, then thinking it must be a bad sending unit.  Note that the car has both a gauge and an idiot light.  Both are driven off a common sending unit.  I grabbed a spare sending unit off my parts car and tried it no luck.  At this point, the car probably had a total of 10 to 15 minutes of idling.  Very discouraged I decided to shut it done and mull the situation over.

Too be continued-