Time for a long overdue update here. I got my car back from the shop... and I have a lot of work to do:
You can't tell from the pic, but the edge that looks blunt is actually razor sharp.
The brand-new wastegate was supposed to come with its own matching fittings which are a much better design. When I saw that I had been charged me for wastegate fittings I asked about these, and he said it didn't come with any. I said I wasn't worried about the $10, but he should ask the person he ordered the wastegate from what was up with that because I checked the Tial website and they still show them as being included (as were they with my Talon's identical WG several years back), when he ignored me, I forgot about it until now:
(Note the lock washer):
The muffler, which can be seen between the trunk wall and heat shield, has about 1/4" of clearance to the bottom of the trunk, and carpet is just on the other side of that thin sheetmetal. Instead of asking for the muffler to be as high and far forward as possible, I guess I should have asked for it to be as high and far forward as
reasonable. I didn't get a good pic of it, but the downpipe coming off of the turbo has about the same clearance to the trunk wall. That part will glow red when I push it, and there isn't even enough room to put a heat shield in between. A slightly sharper bend would have given that enough clearance to use a good heat shield.
Reverse view of the same thing (muffler clearance):
This engine tapping was initially blamed on un-primed lifters. When it didn't go away, he blamed it on what 'must' be a "bad cam". I asked him to diagnose it for sure, and he checked the valve lash...
Waitaminute... checked the valve lash? It's a hydraulic valvetrain. There shouldn't
be any valve lash (he doesn't believe me).
Turns out that, because he think there should be lash, he measured the length wrong for the custom pushrods so they're too short (but not according to him...)
Unfortunately you can't just adjust the rockers to take up the slack like you can in most other pushrod engines because these are pedestal-mounted rockers, meaning they're torqued down solid and non-adjustable. That's the reason custom length pushrods must be ordered when changing to this top end on the older block.
Again, still lots of work for me ahead...