Today, Markie and I put together the rest of the 3.0 Elite. Lots of fiddly crap...Vaccum hoses..
Then I drained out the old oil before even trying to start it, because it was really manky. Changed the filter, and re-filled with GM 10/40.
Filled up the cooling system... cleared the engine bay... double, and triple checked everything was ok...
Connected the battery.. turn the key with bated breath.
Took a bit of turning.. and Vroom.. roared straight into life. Ran a bit lumpy for a fair few seconds (to be expected).. but then smoothed out. Lots of little bits of smoke etc from all over the place, where fluids had been spilled, but that soon went away.
For the first few minutes, there was a noisy lifter on the drivers bank, and I did begin to get worried it wouldn't quieten down and stop tapping.. but thankfully it did.
The engine is now running as smooth as silk, and feels very responsive now I've got the cam timing spot on, and new plugs are in. It now starts on the first turn of the key.. and best of all....
There is no exhaust or manifold blows anymore - not even a little tick 
The cooling system seems to be behaving perfectly since changing the Rad - (suspect as Mark says old one was blocked). It gets up to about 95/6 degrees, and then the fan cuts in and brings it back to about 93/94 degrees. Ran the engine for a good hour, and there was no sign at all of over-heating or over pressuring.
Even better - It fired up first time, with no engine management light!!Did anything go not so well?
Yes, a couple of things.
A) a very, very minor coolant leak from the back of the engine, eg a tiny drip every so often. I'm not too concerned about this, on the basis the inlet will be coming off again at some point to change the stat, and transfer pipe seals.
B) Although there is heat, there is not as much as I'd like in the cabin. So I'm going to flush the Matrix and check the vaccum connections.
Otherwise - project Elite's engine rebuild has been a sucess! Tonight, I'm going to run it up the dual carriageway and back, and open it up for a blast.
Don't anticipate any probs though, temp is now stable, and it sounds sweet as a nut - I'm thrilled, and I'm going to open a beer...
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Topic: Project Elite = Project Sucess = Finished!! (Read 3987 times)