1000 mile update! Well, 960 miles actually. Close enough, it'll roll over 1k tomorrow's commute. I changed the oil at ~530 miles, tish late b/c I had to give a buddy a ride home from work, and he lives in IGH, like 25 miles out of my way. It hadn't burned a drop of oil. I have continued to do vacuum pulls where I can and have done some light, 50% throttle pulls up to around 16psi and the car feels amazing.
MAP had the car for a week or so over xmas/new years (sidebar: best xmas ever? Got great gifts, a job offer, quit my current job, flew to vegas and then got stuck there for New Year's eve. Win!) for some prototyping their o2 dump downpipe but didn't manage to get the 4th bolt in holding the mani to the turbo. I am still a teensy bit peeved but meh, I will survive. Doesn't look like its leaking (yet). I'll find time to put it on sooner or later, but the last time I tried it was an impossible wh0re, even with two people wrenching with all their might.
Clutch is all broken in and the cams seem to idle almost perfect, they sometimes jerk ever-so-slightly when in traffic at 1500rpm but otherwise i can leave it in 1st or 2nd and no throttle input and the car does not buck what-so-ever! I love'em and can't wait to tune them for power.
MAP's recommendation is to leave dino oil in the motor until 1500 miles before switching to synthetic but others say that by 1000 miles the motor is where it's gonna be. I might as well wait a few more hundred miles before switching because with the shitty roads and Shane's schedule, I won't be ready for WOT for at least a few more weeks.
Now, the interesting part! I took a wrench to the car for the first time in a month tonight. Still no leaks that I can find (although Kyle@MAP said he saw a drop of coolant on that one stupid pipe off of the water pump) but I decided to swap in a fresh set of spark plugs, do a compression test, and yank the valvecover quick. I had been using lomker's HKS plugs he had problems with (do you still want these back or should I just give you cash for them Mike?), but interestingly enough the new OEM plugs I got at the dealer were pre-gapped to .021, quite tight IMHO (that's what she said).
Also did compression test: 155 158 154 153. Holy hell! When I got the car I tested it at about 135 across the board. These are supposed to be stock compression pistons, and from what I had read before about 140 is normal. Not sure what it means but I'm kinda pumped that the numbers are strong. If for some reason its kinda high b/c the compression ratio is off...well, I was thinking of going E85 anyways
Next I yanked the valvecover. I wanted to double-check the valve-tappet clearances before deciding to go buck wild with this engine. Mixed feelings about what I found. When I was done putting the motor together one of the intake tappets was .001" out of spec at .010 (spec is .008 +/- .001). It was on the loose side, I had it up to here with the whole car and said fuk it. Now it's at .012, and it probably explains why the valvetrain seems a tish noisy on a cold cold startup. Once warm it is not a problem, so I will consult a few people as to how bad this really is and likely just say FUK IT!
So so so so excited to really rip on this thing I cannot tell you! But, I'm in Minnesota, its cold as shit here now, and we are having one of the snowiest winters on record. Having fun none-the-less!
