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Hahaha - you guys got me laughing. And good advice, I didn't even think about using water - because everything is new and done right, right? Wrong! Dang water pump. Anyway, I just got in from the garage. I finished my to do list. I did the thing with pulling the oil pump and using a dummy shaft and a drill to pump the oil through the engine. I hate the part where you have to remove the oil pump again and reinstall the distributor drive shaft. I made a big oily mess. But, the engine has been sitting for years after being rebuilt, so I feel better pushing oil through it before cranking it. I didn't want to spin the engine with the starter as long as it take for the oil pressure gauge needle to show pressure without pumping oil everywhere first. After that, I pulled the spark plugs and switched on the starter. I kept it spinning until I saw the oil gauge needle just move a bit. It is amazing how long that can take. I didn't time it, but I bet the starter was engaged for 30+ seconds. After that, I put the spark plugs in, hooked up the leads, looked at the engine bay for about 10 seconds trying to think of anything I had missed for the 30th time today, and then thought "f*** it, let's go". I lifted up each carburetor piston and shot some starter fluid in the direction of the intake. And then I turned the key. I got a bit of life from the engine within a couple of cranks, but when I let the key go it would die. I tried that a couple more times and got the same result. Having a good amount of experience with these carbs, the symptom seemed to be that the two carbs were way out of balance. I operated the main linkage and looked at the resulting movement at each carb linkage. The rear carb linkage was activating, but the front carb linkage was not. I adjusted the screws to get them both moving when I threaded in the main throttle screw. Then I tried again. This time I used the starter cable. It fired up, but having fresh in my mind what @siteunseen had said, I treated the ignition keys like a feather trigger, and when the engine revved up pretty high, I turned it off. I pushed the starters in a bit and tried again. This time it fired up and was holding revs at about 2400. Oil pressure was showing 90 psi (I assume the sender I bought must be the one for the early cars?) Not pausing a second, I swung around from behind the dash to the engine bay and bounced my gaze around to check on key things. Almost immediately I noticed fuel flowing up and out of the air vent in the top of the rear carburetor. So, I shut it down. I am not sure what happened there. I set the float levels just a few days ago. Perhaps I have a bad needle/seat. Total run time was only about 30 seconds or so. I was really hoping to run it for about 20 minutes at 2000, as the cam is new and the rockers have been reground. Really hoping that everything got lubricated enough quickly to avoid any problems. I will need to see what is up with the rear carb and try again.

Things are looking up. Here's a driving clip from earlier: 240915-Zdriving1.m4v Work done: TIming to 5° BTDC @ 750 rpm. Rechecked cam sprocket mark (this is at TDC): Cleaned spark plugs. Here's before: Mixture nuts still set ~5 turns down. Still running off the auxiliary tank. I hooked up the main tank just to see if there was a difference, and sure enough, fuel pressure dropped and the float bowl on the rear carb ran dry. Definitely think there's an obstruction in the lines or the tank. Going to drop it and have it re-cleaned. I drove it to the gas station (3 miles one way) and back and it only backfired once under heavy load. It felt REALLY good to have been able to get it out of the neighborhood. So yes, the exhaust is pretty sooty. Is this typical? 240915-exhaustmist.m4v

Hahaha!!! Those are great stories!! My recent new motor fire-up was completely uneventful. I feel totally boring. No, wait... I do have something!!! It was about day three after the fire-up, and I was picking up a noise. Something weird, but certainly unpleasant in the top end. But I don't want to clutter up someone else's thread with tales of my stupidity.

I will one up you. Rebuilt my first z back in the early 80's and took for its first run, out of the driveway, and the pedal gets stuck on the floormat! Headed to the four lane and I decided to push in the clutch, revs went to redline for a few seconds before I could shut it down! Didnt seem to hurt it and it ran hard for years after that. If you want 'em fast, break 'em in fast!

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I put coolant in before seeing it... And, I found out that the water pump (one of the few parts that I did not replace) was weeping coolant. GEEEZ! Thankfully, I have another water pump from a spare engine that seems like it doesn't have many miles on it. So, I had to drain the coolant and replace the water pump with that one, which set me back time-wise. I am taking a break now for dinner. But, I may try to start it after. Add coolant Complete electrical hook up of the Pertronix unit at the coil Install fuel hose on the fuel return line of the fuel rail Repair oil pressure sender wire/connector Remove oil pump and prime engine with oil (using drill and custom made shaft to drive oil pump) Add SAE 20 oil to the carburetors Check torque on cam sprocket bolt Check torque on crankshaft pully bolt Heat engine oil in the pan Install valve cover Add two more gallons of fuel Only a few things left...

I use distilled water for start up, then drain and add coolant later when I fix the o e hose clamp I forgot to tighten.

I think today is "start up day". I have a rather short list of items to complete before I turn the key and see what happens: Add coolant Complete electrical hook up of the Pertronix unit at the coil Install fuel hose on the fuel return line of the fuel rail Repair oil pressure sender wire/connector Remove oil pump and prime engine with oil (using drill and custom made shaft to drive oil pump) Add SAE 20 oil to the carburetors Check torque on cam sprocket bolt Check torque on crankshaft pully bolt Heat engine oil in the pan Install valve cover Add two more gallons of fuel

The driveshaft was delivered to me by FedEx today. During attempted installation, I found that I had to remove some of the original shield. I did this manually with a hacksaw, removing a linear inch of the shield. I measured and ran a piece of tape around the shield to mark where to cut. The remainder of the shield is of a slightly smaller diameter than the shield that is pressed into the tail section of the 240SX transmission. So, it slides within that shield, but with a small air gap. Assuming they removed 2 inches as I specified, I am kind of surprised at how tight the fit is. With the driveshaft installed, the front portion of the shaft (with the spines) is deeply seated inside the transmission. I will add a pic, but essentially, another 1/2 removed from the shaft would have been better. I don't understand why all the references I have found online for shortening the stock driveshaft for 240SX transmission conversion don't seem to match my situation. I confirmed I had the short (early) driveshaft. But instead of shortening by 2 inches (what I found others have done and as I asked for), I think 2.5 inches would be better. With the driveshaft in the car, I moved on to installing the Z-Story exhaust. The header was already installed, of course. So, I unboxed the rest of the parts and put them on the car. I found the fitment to be very good. There is one spot where the exhaust comes within 1/4 inch of the transmission case. However, clearance seems to be enough everywhere - I do not think there will be any rubbing. I also filled the transmission with Redline 75W90 GL4. There is a small list of things that have to be done before I can start the engine.

The collector/investor car market is a strange place. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2010-honda-element-22/