Day 6 - Final Assembly
Spent the morning fitting the parts under the hood. The plenum fit under the hood with the 1/2" spacer installed. The front bolt barely touches the hood pad but I can live with that. It seemed to take forever to get all the little jobs done, change the filter and oil, install the plugs, route the vacuum lines, and install the upper plenum.
Raising the plenum did pose one little problem. The tube from the header fitting to the EGR was now a 1/2" short. The pipe was going to have to be replaced anyway since I found a crack in it. A couple of trips to the hardware store and "Voila" the pipe done. It should serve the purpose for now. I had to unbolt the thermactor pipe from the header for clearance. It will need an additional bracket fabricated.
Finally all the parts are back on except the strut tower brace and a finish panel. They will go back one once the final torques are done after a good warm up. I disconnected the coil prior to starting it and gave it a long crank the get oil pumping through the engine. I reconnected the coil and it fired up and idles on the first try. WOOHOOO!!! I added the coolant and started it back up and let it start to warm up. BOY DID IT SMOKE! It probably smoked for close to a hour. I finally took it for a short drive. I put about ten miles on it so far. It runs pretty good. Feels a lot stronger. I still need to go around and re-torque the headers and exhaust along with double checking the intake bolts.
Tomorrows work...clean up the garage.