I put the car on the charger for a few hours yesterday while installing the trans cooler. Got in to start it up, and it did the same thing--as soon as I put the key on (not even trying to start it), and all power would just cut out. I took the battery to O'Reilly to get it checked, and it was fine. I went back to the shop and before I threw the battery back in, I took a wire brush to the positive battery cable to clear a little bit of rust/corrosion that was there. Got in the car, and it started pretty much immediately. Brake pedal went to the floor, so I still have some air in the system that I gotta work out. But I got the trans cooler in, so that step is complete.

 

One thing I forgot to mention: After only running it a couple of seconds, it started throwing a P0302 Cylinder #2 misfire code. Are misfire codes to be expected running it untuned with a new cam and heads, or do I have to do some other troubleshooting?

 

Do you have a lt4 knock sensor by any chance?

 

No, I do not. When I ran it for about 30 seconds last night, it didn't throw any misfire codes at all. I have bigger problems, though: while running it, I found I have a massive coolant leak--and no idea where it's coming from. I got the car up on stands and poked around underneath for a good 20 minutes and for the life of me couldn't tell where the leak was coming from. The puddle was forming on the passenger side, near the end of the header. My first guess was heater core, but there was no coolant pool on top of the heat shields on that side and there was no evidence of coolant leaking out the heater hoses or down the firewall. Didn't look like it was coming from the sensor, either...

I also have to bleed my master cylinder. Watched a video online showing how to bench-bleed it, and it doesn't actually look as painful as I feared. Gonna do that Saturday.

 

check your crossover pipe. may have hit it when working on her.

 

crossover pipe? what's that?

 

This. the tube connecting the heads.

 

Ah, yes. That would definitely make sense...I'll check it out.

 

So today, I was gonna investigate if that coolant leak was indeed coming from that crossover pipe. I couldn't feel any punctures or anything like that, so I figured I would start the car, stick my hand back there, and feel if there was any coolant coming out. So I started the car, and once I stuck my head under the hood to try to reach behind the motor, I heard knocking under the hood. So I went and shut it off right away. I never heard the knocking before because the headers being so loud. I have no idea if it was doing it the whole time. But of course, by "whole time," I mean it probably ran a grand total of 4 minutes since being back in one piece. I've really only just started it a few times, never did more than idle. So I thought, "hmm, maybe I should look at the oil." So I pulled the dipstick. And basically, the oil looked like this:



Ever wonder what a Royal Purple milkshake looks like?

So wherever my coolant leak is, it's leaking coolant into the engine. I'm now fairly convinced that the leak I saw before was the coolant literally coming out of the header. I'm really at a loss for words...all the time, effort, and money I've put into this thing in the last 10 months, all for naught. I'm literally at square one.

 

crap, did you do a compression test beforehand?