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First Engine Start (24 MB)
Starting any engine for the first time is always a tense and nervous affiar. Is it going to start? Will it even crank? Will terrible scretching sounds come out of the engine? Will water, oil, and/or gas start pouring from the car? Will oil pressure come up?... This really was the first start, no cheating, no test starts before starting the camera.

Getting her off the table, part 1 (36 MB)
This seemed like a good idea, as setting the car on its wheels for the first time is a big milestone. However, during editing it just seemed to drag on and on, so I started fast-forwarding. Doing so saves time and you still get the same idea.

Getting her off the table, part 2 (61 MB)
After getting the car down near the floor, it became apparent that it would trap the legs of the hoist beneath it. More flailing about, and more fast-forwarding. Once down - dang, it's really low. Really really low... I like it! What took so long is that I forgot I'd just thrown whatever springs I had on-hand into the rear, and they're too soft. I had to crank up the springs to keep it from traping the floor jack. The correct springs were ordered soon after this was taken.

Midlana walk-around (125 MB)
This could be done a lot better... I'll do a proper one in the future, as well as compressing it a bit more. Anyhow, here's a quick walk-around which might be helpful since you don't get to see it in 3D every day.

Second start (55 MB)
Well it runs! At least the wiring isn't messed up, but the tach still isn't working :( and it doesn't idle well. I guess that's to be expected since the tune that's in it is a complete blind guess. Still, it wouldn't idle for long on its own, so water temperature only got up to 135 or so. Eh, at least it runs.

Second start, part 2 (45 MB)
I called up Church's Automotive, who's going to be doing the tune and explained the situation. They sent me a tune that they felt would get me off to a better start, and they weren't kidding. Idles great now, so it was left to come up to temperature, and as seen, the cooling fan went on as it should but the engine kept getting hotter. It was shut down at 220 degrees (turns out the aftermarket thermostat housing isn't designed right, and the thermostat had to be removed.)

Dyno tuning, let's see what it'll do! (144 MB)
The big day, and incredibly stressful. In spite of a number of screwups on my part (bolts and tack-welds coming loose, intercooler hoses popping off, and vacuum lines routed wrong), Church Automotive was able to do a great tune - 409.5 hp on 91 octane pump gas. Yes, a Dynopack dyno reads higher than other dynos because the rotational inertia of the wheels and tires is missing, but I'm happy. Later on there may be another round for boost-by-gear and a high/low boost setting. Sorry I didn't record "the" run, but I forgot to have him signal me ahead of time. The dyno charts are in the build diary, to avoid the infamous Internet thing of "without pictures it never happened."