[TEGGSRB18C1]

My friends, we've got all 8. All 5.3 liters of fury have now been unleashed. I took a long weekend with the wife down to Nashville (I highly recommend if you have the time) While I was away, I saw that everything I needed to finish up the engine bay had arrived, I was excited to get home and get this thing done.

First was getting the Mechman installed. Surprise, surprise, the belt they recommended was wrong. It was a hair too short, procured the next size up and it slid right on. Next was the distribution block wire which I was not planning on changing but it just was not jiving with the larger, offset post. Made a new one from 0 gauge and modified the block case to accept the wire. The astute will notice I hotwired the battery, this is kind of a no no but I've done this before without issue.

Finally got the last catch can fitting, got it installed on the can, got the can installed onto the custom bracket sandwich I made up and ran the final vacuum lines to the valve cover and intake manifold. This headlight bucket area is now a mess of hoses and ground wires eliminating a lot of the room I thought I would have to service the can. Painted myself into a corner on that one, might be some fine tuning there.

After that I got the oil changed, put a couple fresh gallons of gas in the tank and nervously turned the key. There was definitely a few seconds of stumbling but after a moment of the ECU and fuel system sorting itself out, she purred. Initially the ABS light was on but after I shut it off to check my oil level, I fired it back up and that light was now gone.

On the second start zero stumble, she caught immediately and came down to low idle a moment later. She takes throttle well and is seemingly very happy. Hard to say what the misfire culprit was. Either a wicked vacuum leak from the completely flattened manifold gaskets or the injectors were really that clogged. Maybe both.

Next up is the getting the front end back together but I may divert from that for a moment and use the extra room to my advantage. I want to replace all the brake lines with the stainless steel Dorman kit as my Dad had endless problems with the OEM lines and the garage that "fixed it" did a complete hackjob, these brakes have been spongey for years. One of those lines runs behind the bumper underneath the radiator support. I think now is the time.