BIG MILESTONE!! I HAVE A RUNNING CAR!
I finally got through my "before first fire up" checklist and was able to turn the key a few days ago. It certainly didn't start on the first try though. I changed and updated so many things I knew it would be a miracle if it fired up first try, but I was just relieved that nothing major went wrong.
The first issue I ran into was my starter was dead. I first checked to make sure it was getting full power from the battery, and then also getting a full 12V on the exciter wire when they key was in the start position. With that confirmed, I took the starter off and tested it on the bench and sure enough it was dead. Luckily I have a guy in town that rebuilds starters and alternators and he was able to turn it around for my in about a day. He said some oil had gotten inside it and turned into sludge and a lot of the contacts were corroded. Makes sense since it was sitting on the shelf for 2 years. Here is a pic of the bench test:
After I got that figured out, my fuel pump was not priming with the key in the RUN position so I couldn't set the fuel pressure. I installed a new fuel pressure regulator so I really wanted to check this before I started the car. So, I first tested the relay and it seemed to only work when it wanted to so I replaced it with a new one and the fuel pump primed right up.
Testing the relay:
Setting fuel pressure... I set mine to 44psi before starting the engine.
Lastly I swapped the 2 year old gas I had sitting in the tank for some fresh 93 using my transfer pump:
At first the engine turned over fine but wouldn't catch, so I played with the distributor a bit and got it to fire up! Hopefully this video works:
https://youtu.be/gUDaUeyyz5A
Even though it fired up, it was having trouble idling. I tried checking the timing with the tan connector over the AC box disconnected, but it was all over the place. I also checked it with the A and B pins in the connector under the dash shorted but that didn't help either. I need to look into that as a really wanted to get my base timing dialed in.
I also noticed a slow coolant leak out of the back of the intake, which means I possible could have a big vacuum leak as well. This could definitely explain the rough idle, so looks like I may be taking my intake apart again to check that out. :doh:
Other than that, super pumped to have a running car and that nothing blew up!