It’s alive.

Last night I got down under the car with a good light, and found the timing markings. Using a three paint pens, I marked TCD, 12 degrees BTDC, and some mysterious marking ATDC which I think is probably at 45 degrees.

Today, pushed the start button and it fired right up. Timing was off, at about 3 degrees after top dead center, but a quick twist of the distributor and the timing was spot on 12 degrees BTDC. The engine smoothed out at 2000 RPM with a mean but smooth growl, and I adjusted the idle back down to 800 RPM or so.

Goosing the gas, its like track side at a NASCAR race. This is a LOUD car. Those of you who heard my 911 when I owned it — thats a freakin’ Prius compared to this thing.

After idling for five or ten minutes, the car was still running smoothly, the engine was running closed loop and keeping the mixture at (an admittedly fairly rich) 12.5:1, the water temperature came up to 192 and the thermostat opened. Radiator got hot, the heater core was getting hot.

I shut it down when the water temperature started hovering around 210 — the radiator fan hadn’t come on and without the car moving I didn’t want to overheat and frankly I wasn’t sure I trusted all the hoses if the temperature got too far over boiling. I’d rather have the body and hood on if I’m going to pop a radiator hose.

When I turned the car off, the radiator fan came right on and ran until the temperature got back down. Clearly something is not wired right there, but it was good to see in theory the thermostat on it worked.

It was a big moment. Last weekend was rough when it came to getting the car running. I didn’t feel at all satisfied with how it ended up.

Now, I have a car. If I had the steering wheel on, there’s no reason beyond the law that I couldn’t have taken it for a drive.

Oh, and I mounted the dash. Velcro. Works well. I’d say more, but hell… I’ve got a car in my garage. I can talk about the dash tomorrow.