Day 6 | Index

Phase V : Fixing any issues after rebuild

After a rough start, we got the engine running, although pretty rough. We could not let it idle without a foot on the accelerator otherwise it would stall. After keeping it going long enough to get it warmed up, it was still running real rough and the temperature guage was reading cold. After going over all of the sensor connections, I found the two senors on the water inlet housing that didn't have the sensor connectors properly attached. Once I attached these, the engine ran a lot better! Still not smooth as glass, but a lot better.

Subsequent starts of the engine still showed difficulty starting the engine and rough at idle.

Next day I tried driving around the neighborhood. I went light on the gas pedal and didn't allow it to boost. It feels strong! While cruising, the engine feels great. Still a bit rough idling. I got a "check engine" light. It was for the camshaft position sensor. This is interesting since this engine doesn't have a camshaft position sensor!

I checked the timing and it is dead on (with a jumper across E1 and TE1 on the DLC, the timing mark showed up at 8° BTDC).

On Friday, 5/17/02, I brought the car home from Bob's garage. This is roughly a 20 mile drive. Some of it is highway. The car ran perfectly. Still getting check engine and rough at idle. I noticed that if I reset the DTC (Check engine fault), it only comes back when I restart the engine.

Well, it's been a couple of days and I've put about 100 miles on the new engine: NO LEAKS!!!! This is great! But yes...still rough idling...sometimes.

UPDATE: Found out why the engine was running so rough...When I had the valve job done, the shop didn't regrind the valve stems. When the seats were cut back, this raised the stems up. This in turn caused some of the valves to always remain open. Now I have to pull the head AGAIN and bring it back to the shop to get it fixed! This sucks...

UPDATE #2: The engine has been running nice for some time now. The only problem is this insesent knock that doesn't go away after the engine warms up. Due to the fact we used forged pistons, it was expected there may be a knock when the engine is cold. But this knocking doesn't go away. We checked the bearings and they were OK. We did notice the pistons rocking in the bore a bit more than expected. This may be the cause.

UPDATE #3: 4/01/2003 : Yep...the knocking was the pistons! Because the cylinder wasn't bored wide enough, the piston skirts got ruined. After that, the pistons were allowed to bounce around in the bore a lot. This was the knocking noise I was hearing. Time for another engine rebuild...go here to follow the story.