Took advantage of a day off (mostly) and good weather and marked a significant milestone today. I had previously cleaned up the block deck and cylinder head mating surfaces, and bolt holes, and installed the 2-notch head gasket, cylinder head, oiled and torqued the new head bolts, + the additional 180 deg (they want a continuous motion on that, which was hard to manage until I put the pipe on the 24" breaker bar. Then it was an easy walk around the front of the car to the other side
.) The head bolt in the Time-sert repaired bolt hole seemed to act similar to the others-- time will tell how well it holds up. Still have two more 90deg bolt tightening procedures to go: one after first warm-up, the other after 600-1200 miles.
Then belts, camshaft and IP timing.
Today I was able to bolt up the exhaust manifold and install the injector lines.
Still trying to figure out the best way to clean out the clingy oil gunk mess inside the whole cooling system, so the radiator is still out of the car and the hoses are not connected.
But I looked at it then and thought: "It could start as it is, right now." Cranked and cranked until fuel came out of the loosened #1 injector line. Energized the GPs and it started and idled by itself
until I shut it off because no coolant. I had to try several times
and it did start easily each time.