SABB Almost But Not Quite

I put the SABB engine back together again. In the end everything looked fine:

- No spare bits left over
- Heads and injector bolts tightened to specification
- All banjo washers where they are supposed to be
- Didn't forget the injector seal either
- Tappets adjusted to .3 mm as per specification
- Fuel system bled
- Manifold an mixer mounted and connected up
- Engine and transmission oil levels were ok
- Remembered to open the raw water cooling inlet valve
- Fire extinguisher in the cockpit because you never know.

While doing the tappets I rolled the engine over and over and the rocker gear was working fine.
After the tappet job I re inserted the starter plugs and the compression felt good enough to prevent me from turning the engine by hand.

I bled the fuel line by loosening each banjo fitting at the head and watching healthy streams of fuel with no air coming out.

Everything looked good to go.

But the engine would not start.

It rolled over fine but didn't seem even close to starting. I ran the starter for a few bursts with the decompression lever engaged to turn the engine over with minimal load to the battery, then tried again with full compression.

It was almost sundown so rather than running down the starter batteries I elected to leave it for tomorrow hoping for a solution either from myself or from advice. At this point if looks like a fuel problem. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job of bleeding the fuel line.

The first photo shows the heads, injectors, fuel lines, seals, and valve rockers in place. Fortunately for me, Bob from Estelle knew that he would be away today and came by to see if I would need his tension wrench today. This enabled me to properly tension the head bolts.

The second photo shows the assembled engine ready for startup (so I thought).