With all of the major issues taken care of, it was time to go for a test drive! A few minor things needed to be sorted out first though. For starters the instrument panel hasn't been wired up, so a Celica temperature gauge was temporarily wired in and a boost gauge was plumbed into the plenum. That's all you really need right?
Cooling was another issue as the engine was still lacking a fan, so a couple of thermo fans were hastily installed; these are the small ones which are usually used on air conditioning cores, so it's definitely not a permanent solution, but it seems to do the job!
The steering rack has a bad leak, so I couldn't hook up the power steering pump. The pump can't be removed from the engine because of the serpentine belt arrangement, and the pump can't be allowed to run dry, so I used a few spare hydraulic hoses and fittings to loop the power steering fluid through the reservoir - a neat but temporary solution. The steering is rather heavy at parking speeds but it's quite OK once the car is moving.
With everything looking OK I started the engine and let it warm up for the first time. Surprisingly there were no leaks, rattles, or bad noises. The engine started easily and idled beautifully. It sounds absolutely fantastic with the new exhaust system!
Once I was satisfied that the engine was doing what it should, I bolted up all the missing panels, double-checked everything I could think of, and climbed into the drivers seat for the first drive of Project 2JZ...
