Holy moly! I'd imagine that working on racing engines and high powered engines must have much tighter tolerances across the board that you have to watch out for. I'm glad I get to keep it simple.
I hope I'm not beating a dead horse, but I still can't figure out where I went wrong though.
I only ran it for 5 seconds to verify oil pressure and that it started, and then shut it down. During that period, it had break-in oil, was pre-primed, and already had the valves and timing pre-adjusted. Now that I know it starts, I'll hook it all up and do the 20 minute procedure. Do most guys actually hook everything up and run it for the 20-30 minutes on the very FIRST start? I'm nowhere near that confident in my abilities!
It's, like you said, my inexperience talking but I was convinced the thing wouldn't even start so I wasn't ready to mount it and hook it all up before I knew it actually ran. But if that's all that was done wrong, then I feel a bit better and won't make that mistake again. Being my first engine, I'm just glad it didn't explode.
