KLZE sounds like wonkamobile after replacing heads

[cout]

We just replaced out heads in our KLZE with the heads off a millenia (it's what was available in the junkyard). We kept the cams from the KLZE and the rest of the head from the millenia. Because this is a LeMons race, to keep the price down we ordered a gasket set from ebay.

We aligned the cams, put the cam sprockets back on, aligned the cam sprockets with the timing marks, set the #1 cylinder at TDC and put the timing belt back on. We rotated the crank by hand to ensure that we had put everything together correctly. All the timing marks still aligned properly after rotating the crank.

We put the distributor on, put the valve covers back on, intake, electrical, and vacuum. The EGR was never properly deleted on this engine, so we went ahead and took it out. The EGR solenoids are still hooked up to the wiring harness but not to vacuum. We left the purge solenoid disconnected and blocked off the places it would normally connect.

When we turned on the ignition and pushed start, the engine turned over but sputtered. It sounds like "glug glug psssst glug glug pssst", which made all of us develop an uncanny chocolate craving. There are visible white puffs coming out of the intake, and there was actually enough pressure to push off the VAF.

Sounds like a timing issue to me. We double-checked spark plug wires and tried rotating the distributor with TEN and GND jumped, but to no avail. We retraced our steps on the valve timing but could see no place where we had gone wrong (haven't actually checked this yet).

Any ideas what might cause this? What tests might we run to help nail down the problem?

[Ryan]

If you're getting compression into the intake.... either your timing is off, or your heads are shot(in some way)

You know there are timing marks for all of the gears, right? you don't need to guess where cyl #1 TDC is.

[WhiteFinish]

If you took the cams of the ZE it should have HLA, some millenia's have SLA's...
You'd need the millenia cams if you'd have the sla's.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

How could the VAF get pushed off? Did you not tighten it down with the clamps or what? Is the TB screw open enough to let enough air into the engine at idle?

[Juans_93_MX3]

Sounds like bad timing. Make sure you guys remembered to tighten the big 18m bolts on the cam sprockets.

If you forgot to tighten it to spec, you may have broke a cam pin. Which would mean that your timing is off and youll need a new cam.

I know, I did just that on my ZE swap

But yeah, look at the timing. Also, make sure there isnt a air leak. Look around the intake manifold for this. Bolts that arent tighten in the I/M will make you have a airleak.

[davmac]

If you took the cams of the ZE it should have HLA, some millenia's have SLA's...
You'd need the millenia cams if you'd have the sla's.

You haven't responded to this suggestion so it's repeated here. The ZE cams REQUIRE hydraulic lash adjusters. If your millenia heads have the solid kind and you didn't think to swap them this would explain your problem.

[cout]

Good to know about the HLA's / SLA's. I didn't know that, so it's a good thing we didn't blindly use the Probe GT heads. The Millenia heads are HLA's, I think (everything basically looked the same as our heads except for the KL01 cams).

The problem turned out to be that we got the cam sprockets backward and put the R on the left side and the L on the right side. Dumb, dumb, dumb (but an easy mistake to make).

Now we have everything running smoothly at WOT but my compadres tell me we have a rough idle. I haven't had a chance yet to crank it up myself and hear it. Plan is to double-check vacuum, crank it up, check vacuum with starter fluid, set the timing, reset the ECU, and possibly check compression. Anything else I should look for?

Also in light of this mistake I have purchased a $20 labeler from Wal-mart and plastic tape. I'm going to label everything I see so if we have to take anything apart during the race there won't be scrambling through the books to figure out what goes where. We may get laughed at but at least we'll reduce the chance of error under pressure.

[cout]

Idle problem was a vacuum leak (surprise, surprise). Engine sounds great now! Lots of low end torque but power seems to really kick in around 4500rpm (still running stock K8 ECU, so maybe VRIS isn't optimal). Also running rich but that's good, right? (runs cooler, better for producing power). Should be a fun race this weekend!

[_-Night-Shade-_]

Nope, it's not good. You should use a DE ECU until you can get your hands on a ZE ECU or Probinator.