Miata Engine Build - Day 3

Friday night, the NMS South team made a heroic push until 2am Saturday to completely assemble the engine and transmission.  It was a long night but it felt great to have it all in one piece and ready to load back into the car (again).

Mmmm. Four quarts of tasty Amsoil engine break-in oil. It's even red to match.

Monday morning we attacked the project and got the whole assmebly into the car fairly quickly but unfortunately spent 12 hours troubleshooting when the engine failed to fire up right away.

Despite use of the largest pry bar in town, Jason still couldn't figure out why it wasn't working right.

In the end we were again defeated by the engine and need to plan another day and find more items to troubleshoot.  The engine is getting power, making oil pressure, and at one point would fire up and would rev, but would not idle.  Now it's not even wanting to turn over, so we've got research to do.  

All dressed up, somewhere to go, but refuses to move.

It's looking grim for making a return to autocross for the first SCR-SCCA event on Sunday, February 21st, but we'll keep pushing. The main goal is to be ready for the SCCA Dixie Tour on March 18th, so stay tuned as we figure this one out.