Well, was hoping to have the engine in and getting close to firing her up, but the shortblock is still at the engine builder. No issues, just some delays due to his cat having health issues a few weeks ago, then some higher priority tasks last week, and now a pulled muscle this week. He gave me an original completion date for this shortblock build of mid February, late February for sure. We're not behind schedule by too much, so not a big deal at this point. He said today it should be ready by Thursday morning, so we'll see. I sure hope so.
Got everything ready to plug that mutha in. Hooked up the fuel system and Holley HP ECU and harness to the completed manifold/throttle body setup(including injectors and all sensors) and everything checks out good now with no leaks and all sensors initialized and working. Customized the bulky harness a bit to remove some unnecessary hookups and get the various lengths just how I wanted them. I did have to fix an issue with the Edelbrock fuel rails not being tapped deep enough for the pipe fittings to make a good seal, and one of the 45 degree Aeroquip PTFE fitting just flat out leaked, but those are now solved. Fuel system now runs solid at 52PSI so I'm happy to clear that hurdle. I upgraded the Holley software and ECU firmware to v2.0 and loaded the initial configuration into the ECU from my laptop. That's all squared away now and ready to fire up and start 'learning'. The fuel system and wiring for an EFI system is actually quite a bit of work, especially if you're trying to hide sh_t and make it look as clean as possible. Tucked the coil up under the dash and have the ECU mounted just above the vent on the passenger's kick panel. Also filled some small holes on the firewall and re-sprayed a few areas to clean it up.
So the engine bay and parts on my workbench are hungry for a friggin' shortblock.
