Engine Start Attempt

As it was a long weekend here, I had been planning for a few weeks to try to get the first start attempt organised for this weekend. After finishing the last few things on my To Do list we ran some electrical checks, then dropped her back on to her wheels. From here we pulled all the spark plugs out to lower compression and then cranked the engine over by hand to circulate some oil. We then cranked the engine over with out any fuel, to make sure it cranked. It did! This means most of the electrical system so far is working with no blue smoke coming out.


We then rolled her out the front, and broke out the fire extinguishers. I put 5 litres of fuel in the tank, and we got ready to fire it up. Turning the key got it to crank, but that was it. A glance at the fuel pressure gauge indicated no pressure. So either we had the filter in the wrong way up, the the FPR incorrectly set up, or the pump lines were wrong. We pulled the line off between the pump and the filter, and cranked it again back into the jerry can. Still no fuel?!? The pump was cutting out fairly quickly, so we surmised maybe there was not enough fuel in the tank, so we added 5 more litres and tried it again. Fuel started to splutter out of the hose! We reconnected it back to the filter and clamped it, then tried it again. No start, but this time the FPR went up to 90psi.....which is double what we need. I adjusted the FPR back down to 42psi and locked it off.


Put the key back in and cranked it over......

:)   Very happy!


It starts easily, runs very smoothly and revs nicely. Its fairly quiet with the muffler I have fitted. I need to reorganise the cooling, but it pressurised OK and nothing leaked. Best of all the fuel system worked perfectly (once we had enough fuel in it). Its hard to believe I have managed to pull together a bunch of parts from all over the world and combine them into a single working unit.


This is a major milestone as I can now engage the engineer to start certifying it for rego, and I can also start putting the finishing touches on it such as the windscreen, roll bar and the lights. 


Many thanks again to Steve who assisted with the troubleshooting and shared in the elation of the first start (although no feet in the video as he was shooting it on the phone!)