Hi all,

Today was THE day: with everything back in the engine bay, my freshly built megasquirt all hooked up, the beast fired up the first time I cranked it!! cooool... There's another EFIed amazon in the world!!

Now that's it for the fun part... As soon as it was running, my friend and I started to listen to see if everything was ok. Unfortunately, it definitely has this "john deere" like noise in the background. using the screwdriver technique, we made sure there is no problem with the rockers, the timing gear (brand new steel unit) has a slight whine but seems OK. The noise comes more from the bottom of the engine, somewhere in the back. The big end and camshaft bearings are new, as is the camshaft itself, whereas the main bearings are the old ones, that still looked excellent. The crankshaft was measured and was in the specs. The oil pressure light goes off very fast when cranking, so I think this is not an issue. The engine cranked very smoothly, the drag I mentionned in a prvious post being most certainly the fresh rings/honing. When assembling the engine, the crankshaft was turning absolutely freely when torqued down without the conrods in. This seems to indicate a well performed reassembly. So now what can it be??Is this sort of noise normal when new bearings are fitted? Which checks can I perform at this point with the engine in the car?

Thanks for your ideas! Séb