Crank No Start

[SuspiciousPizza]

Prepare your thinking caps.

I've recently done a full rebuild (minus bottom end) of an SPFI EA82 and full reconditioning of the engine bay. 

The engine and manifold are a bit of a Frankenstein but both the engine ran, and all of the electronics (dizzy, throttle body, ECU, maf sensor, etc) came from a running engine.

Air: I just redid the head gaskets (that's why I'm trying to start this thing up and clearly failing) the heads were fully reconditioned (valves and seats ground, new valve seals, new guides, new lifters, head resurfaced). Deck was meticulously cleaned. All new seals on the throttle body. All new hoses everywhere of the proper metric sizes. It definitely has compression.

Fuel: Pump is noisy but it ran the engine previously. Injector is firing and spray pattern from what I can tell looks okay. I did have an issue of coolant leaking from the throttle body into the intake but I removed the plugs and cranked it over for a few seconds a couple of times to hopefully blow all that into the exhaust or out the spark plug holes. Coolant leak looks to be resolved (looking past the throttle plate with WOT and injector disconnect while cranking). Fuel has been sitting for about 10 months with a stabilizer added while I've been gathering parts and meticulously working on this thing by the book. But even when I spray ether into the intake, it doesn't fire. It sounds more promising with the ether. I let it air out with spark plugs removed, disconnected the injector and tried to run it off ether. It sounded like it really wanted to kick over (*faint* whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp). TPS is set up properly and tests okay. 

Spark: It has spark on all 4 plugs, proper gaps, tested body & engine grounds for resistance (0.3-0.4 ohm from the ground to the battery). No codes from ECU. Dizzy is properly phased with the cams, it should be in a good enough range to at least kick over, maybe not run perfectly but it's in the proper range to run.

I'm at a bit of a loss here, anything stand out to anyone or any thoughts or opinions? I have an FSM and I can go through everything in the troubleshooting diagram. I'm just confused, I have all the ingredients for fire but success evades me currently.

Thanks :]

Edited 14 hours ago by SuspiciousPizza

[bushytails]

If you have fuel and you have spark, that means you might have a timing problem, either ignition or valve, or a compression problem.  Check both timing belts are installed correctly.  Check for top dead center compression stroke on #1 (feel for compression in the spark plug hole, then probe it to find the top of the stroke) and verify the rotor in the dist is pointing at your #1 spark plug wire at that time.  Check compression, which will also find valve problems, like being adjusted too tight, not seating, etc.

[el_freddo]

I had a “problem” with my first and last EA82 rebuild - turns out we missed the bit where you fit one cam belt then rotate the crank one revolution and fit the second cam belt. 

When the crank is lined up one cam will be at 12 o’clock and the other will be at 6 o’clock. 

This is the key to EA82 timing belt alignment - don’t miss that crank rotation between fitting belts!

[SuspiciousPizza]

Timing belts were put on by the book. Driver side, rotate 180, passenger side. Check at 0 BDC if the pulley markings are facing "outwards" and dizzy is set to #1. It is. Plug wires are in the proper firing order to the proper cylinders.

Belts were torqued with a homemade version of the factory tool and a beam torque wrench. Granted the belts were used for about 2-3k miles so I had to tighten to 18ftlb rather than 2ftlb if the belts were new. But I followed the chart in the FSM. 

If I had to guess it to be anything it'd either be a timing issue or a compression issue, somehow, but I'm more inclined to believe the former rather than the latter. Could also be bad gas, but it doesn't run off ether which is why I think it's a timing/spark issue. Even though I have spark. I seriously doubt a coil or dizzy issue.

:]