Well today was the day I had been waiting for for quite a while now. I spent a large amount of time securing and verifying components. This included adjusting throttle cables, choke cables, fuel lines, air filters, adding oil, and other engine related items.
I spent a fair amount of time securing the cable 'Y' for my choke. I tried securing it with the same bolts that hold the fuel pumps in place. There wasn't enough space to allow for this so I ended up using a new pipe clamp to create a mounting point for the 'Y'. In the picture below you can see the two pipe clamps in the lower left corner.
In the process of securing the choke cable, I rerouted its cable and placed a rubber cushion around the choke lever attachment bracket. I rerouted the cable to keep it from rubbing and interfering with one of the aileron pulleys. The rubber cushion was required to keep the lever from rotation around the flap handle.
I also trimmed the cable and applied some solder to keep it from fraying.
Prior to starting the engine, I needed to prime the oil lines. This required cranking the engine, with the CDIs off and spark plugs removed, until a pressure is indicated by the oil pressure sender. The engine manual does not specify what this pressure should be. I turned the engine over for several seconds before I got nervous and let go of the starter switch. Unfortunately, nothing happened when I hit the starter button a second time. I had blown the three amp fuse that powers the starter solenoid, RDAC, and fuel pressure sender. I replaced the fuse with a larger 5 amp fuse. This worked for a while but also blew. I replaced this with a 10 amp fuse but will need to find a better solution.
Back to the oil priming... Even though I could crank the motor, I still wasn't getting any oil pressure. I ended up fixing this by plugging the air vent on the oil tank. This allowed air pressure to build in the tank and help force oil into the engine. I saw about 6 psi of oil pressure once the system was primed.
Once I started my engine I noticed a few other problems. The first was engine vibration. The engine wasn't running rough but at idle the top of my electrical panel was vibrating more than I wanted it to. At slightly higher RPMs, the vibration reduced significantly. Hopefully, balancing the carbs will alleviate this.
The second problem was the lack of a RPM signal. My tachometer wasn't getting any kind of signal. I played with the jumper settings on the RDAC with no result.
The third problem was also fuse related. The 3 amp fuse to my regulator was too small and as expected, was blowing. This was causing me to run off my battery and more importantly, not recharging it between starts. The fuse should have been rated at 20 amps. This was caused by a typo in the schematics and label I created.
Other than the problems listed above, the engine ran great.