Coming along nicely...

 

Spent the day putting the engine back together today, and got all the fluids in. After a couple short cranks it fired up, and was shaking like crazy. After a couple minutes of it not settling down we turned it off. We were able to pull the following codes while it was running though: P0300, P0303, P0304, P0308.

Thinking that we had some how wired the coils incorrectly we pull the top end off, and started over on the coils. We completely unplugged them, and then installed them in the correct order. We even triple checked it to make sure. The engine was reassembled a short time later, and fired back up. All the codes were erased prior to starting the engine too. After starting the engine back up we had the following codes: P0300, P0303, P0304, P0308, P1884.

The oil pump was primed, and there is no oil pressure light on. There's plenty of new coolant in the engine, and you can see it circulating into the reservoir. It feels like this thing is missing big time. Anyone have any ideas on something that I could have missed or overlooked?

 

Since you checked the arrangement on the coil packs and all is confirmed, correct positions, I'd start pulling plugs...to look for cracked porcelains. Did you put the plugs in after you installed or before?

Brian.

 

The plugs were the last thing we did. After pulling plugs 3 4 8 it appears they're not firing. All three of those plugs look brand new, and zero have zero discoloration. We put three plugs from the old block into the new block to see if that would make a difference. We started it back up and still have P0303 P0304 P0308 coming up as well as P0306 now.

I would also like to add this thing is smoking like crazy. Which is something I don't feel like it should be doing, or at least not this much. It's having a hard time firing up, idles very rough, and smokes like a chimney. I feel it getting oil since this was primed, and since we don't have an oil pressure dummy light coming on.

I'm not sure if this is related to clogged cats, O2 sensors, or what?

*Edit* just pulled all plugs; 3 4 8 6 look as if they've never been fired. Cylinder 1 is full of coolant, cylinder 2 is running rich, cylinder 5 looks good, and cylinder 7 looks ok.

 

Massive vac' leak??

 

That was something that I thought about, but I'm not 100% sold on that. We didn't have any vacuum leaks prior to the install, and not sure where we would have developed a leak now?

After pulling all the plugs in looking into the holes cylinder 8 was flooded with gas, cylinder 6 had less gas, cylinder 4 has a little gas, and cylinder 2 had no gas. On the driver side it looks like cylinder 3 had gas in it, and the rest looked fine.

As of now we've drained the coolant out just in case that was a leak, but I'm not thinking that was a problem. We had some coolant on cylinder 1 plug, but I honestly think the little drop I saw for from it touching a small puddle for us draining. Cylinder 5 and 7 looked to be OK.

Cylinder 1 2 5 7 were the only ones firing. We double checked wires, plugs, and coil packs. We started off with brand new coil packs, and wires. After having issues we swapped those out for the old coil packs, and old wire since we knew they were good.

I also pulled the fuel rail to test the injectors. Based on numbers the look to be OK, and here are the injector readings.
#8 15.7 ohm
#6 15.0 ohm
#4 15.0 ohm
#2 14.8 ohm

#7 15.0 ohm
#5 15.0 ohm
#3 15.2 ohm
#1 15.3 ohm

 

New injector Orings, each seated into the manifold properly?

 

That's one of the areas in question. I did rebuild the injectors, and I'm wondering if I might have messed something in the process. I'm leaning towards running to the local yard, and pulling the entire rail off injectors and all. Since the injectors were the only thing we changed that's the most logical explanation.

The other thing I'm wondering about if it there's a procedure for "bleeding" a fuel rail? My fuel rail was bone dry when install, and I did nothing to get the air out.

​​​​​​The last thing we did today was get a compression tested. Each cylinder is holding 80lbs of pressure so that ruled out a leak or gasket. We also pulled the upper manifold, and saw no signs of leakage there.

 

You could purge the rail for piece of mind but you shouldn't need to bleed the rail, I know I didn't.

Have you visually checked for spark on the bad cylinders? As in pulling the plug and connecting it to the wire and turning it over? That will definitively rule out a spark issue.

as far as the injectors are concerned. Make sure they are seated well in their cups on the rail, I was surprised at how difficult it was to get every injector seated correctly even though the o rings were well lubricated.

Quadruple check your vacuum lines. I found 4 leaks a week after I did my head gaskets and they were all super obvious places but the hoses appeared to be seated and the clamps were installed. Also had a Crack in the plastic intake tube around the base of the nipple where the IAC tube connects.
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You should also probe each injector wire while turning the engine over. This will definitely tell you that each injector is getting signal.