Spent mst of the day at Darkos today, and after a few little snags that had to be overcome, the beast finally fired up. It stalled quickly

A few minutes of tweaking some settings, and it fired right back up and purred at 1700 rpm. Ok, more like a roar, as the downpipe is disconnected, but it was smooth.

The rad was out due to it being punctured, and the water pipe o-ring torn, so we couldn't let it run for more than a very short time, but it was enough to set the timing, and listen to the sound and finally know after a long time and redoing a few jobs a couple times, it was almost ready for the road.
Then came the beer!! lol

NICE!

Hey Darko,

Maybe when the rad is done and need to be dropped, hope i could lend a hand and...hold the beer for yah!

It was sweet music to my ears to hear the bastard running finally...

Over the course of the few weeks (or months, heh) the 2.4 and tranny had to come out twice, then the transmission had to be removed 3 times to get it all right. Lets just say I learned a lot of small (and big) things over the course of this project and I definitely won't be making some of the dumber mistakes twice. Who knew the little tin plate that sits between the bellhousing and block would mean the difference between a freely rotating engine and a giant paperweight?

Nick went at the rad with his soldering skillz and sealed it good, it doesn't leak any more. Im gonna pick up the o-ring for the water pipe tomorrow and hopefully get the cooling system all set up. After that it needs to be tuned just enough so I can drive it to the exhaust shop (slowly) to get the pipes connected... but hey, the big hurdle is long gone now.

Thanks everyone who helped (Nick, Wes, Tony, Amin, and others). Also Chris Andrews because I never would've done this had he not sent me that mysterious little email 6 or 7 months ago ... although I don't know if I should be thanking him, or booking a flight to BC to kick his ass for making me spend so much money

Damnit Darko! You've beaten me by a few days.
Oil lines are here now and I'm just waiting to prime her up and turn the key If Cesar is available it'll happen tomorrow evening!

That leaves only one thing to be said...:

See you on the highway!

Rob, we simply slid off the timing belt and primed the pump by drill... if Cesar doesn't show for whatever reason, just do it this way. It works better than fine and its not THAT big of a deal to slip the belt back on.

Then again, I had Nick there doing all this work and he's damn fast, so it may take you longer

Highway? No problem...