The engine became ready for the first start when all of the hoses and parts were put in place. The engine compartment is shown in pictures 46a and 46b.

Correct amount of oil was put in the engine and the radiator was filled with water and anti-freeze. There were no leaks. An electric drill was attached to the auxiliary axis of the engine via toothed belt to get the oil running before starting of the engine. The lubrication system could then be checked for leaks. The auxiliary axis is that which operates oil pump, distributor and standard fuel pump.

The oil hose of the turbo was left unconnected during the first tests of oil pressure. The purpose of this was to get all debris away from the oil galleries, before attaching the turbo to the oil circuit.

The oil pump proved to be very powerful. Oil was squirting from the open oil hose union and it filled the pot that was put under it in a short moment. The hose can now be attached to the turbo, and check the oil flow through it. The amount of oil flowing was surprising small. However, the turbo is new and it is not possible that any obstacles had got to the oil galleries. The oil return hose was also put in place.

Since the lubrication system seemed to be working perfectly, the next task was to adjust the fuel pressure. With assistance of my friend, the fuel tank was filled with high-priced gasoline. Fuel hoses under the tank were found to be leaking, so they had to been changed. Luckily, there was nothing wrong with the fuel tank.

After the hoses have been replaced, the fuel pump fuse was put in place and the fuel pump was heard running. The pump is quite noisy, and it seems to have additional fuel delivery capacity. Maybe a small resistor could be connected in series with the pump, to reduce it's power input and lengthen its life.

The fuel pressure was set to 0.5 bar (7 psi) and the fuel hose was attached to the carburetors. They did not seem to be flooding. Distributor was put in place and the points were set to open at 5 degrees before Top Dead Center using a multimeter.

The electric circuit of the engine seemed to work strangely. The warning lights of low oil pressure and charging circuit did not light up. The reason for this was that cable between the engine and chassis was missing. After fitting it to the car, the electric system worked perfectly.

That was followed by the most exciting part of the project, the start attempts of the engine. Surprisingly, the engine started immediately without problems and with rough running of the engine and a lot of smoke the car was driven out of garage. These were the first meters of the car using it's own power source!

Later, the starter stopped working and the battery was thought to be empty. The lights of the instrument panel seemed to be on during the start attempts also, so there were problems with the starter itself. The starter is located in very difficult place, as seen in previous chapters of the story, but it can be changed when some oil hoses, radiator fan and one engine fastener is removed. The engine can then be lifted slightly using a jack, and the starter can be removed. After replacing that, the starter worked again. After some examination of the old starter, it was noticed that nothing was actually wrong with it. It just had loads of oil in it because of the oil pump testing that was told before in the text.

The engine was noticed to be running at very rich mixture because it ran roughly and produced a lot of black smoke. The situation got even worse when the car was tried to be driven using more RPM thus producing some boost. The engine responded well to lowering the fuel pressure, and ran much better with 0.25 bar (3.5 psi). Evidently, the pressure regulator did not work well at any higher fuel pressure settings. At this stage, the fuel line was equipped with a pressure gauge.

The engine seems to be ok now, and only the carburetors and ignition need more precise tuning to have the engine running perfectly. The car cannot be driven at high boost yet since the ignition system is still in its standard form. Turbo engines need spark advance reduction as the boost pressure rises, but the existing distributor does nothing for that. There can then be detonation in the engine and it may fail.

However, I retarded the ignition by a few degrees and had some test driving. Luckily, there was a tarmac yard nearby where I could drive safely and also speed up. The front tires of the car wore rapidly and there are much black stripes on the yard. It is fun to be a child again! :-)

The exhaust manifold got some blue color and Thermo-Tec coatings gave some smoke when getting warm for the first time. The next step is to check the alternator and some other parts that are located near the turbo and exhaust systems. It must be checked whether the heat shields are adequate to prevent the parts getting too much heat radiation. Besides, a hole must be drilled to the tailpipe to make fitting a lambda sensor possible. That allows monitoring the air/fuel ratio.

The next major step is to get the vehicle to street legal. For that, the engine must be dyno tested to find out the maximum power.