An embarrassing moment here...due to sheer stupidity and inattention.

So I pulled the 1673 cam, cam gear and extra shims out of the EL. Put the XR cam back in and tightened the rocker assembly down.

This is the stupid part. As I am rushing to get this done, I forgot to check the camshaft when I was tightening down the rocker assembly. Turns out, the notch on the cam was on the driver's side, rather than the passenger's side, meaning the valves were not at TDC and thus I f**k up something. Crank was still at TDC, so piston 1 and 6 are at the top.

After putting all together, I tried to turn it over manually but it gets stuck at one point. I have a feeling a valve is bent/stuck open on cylinder 1 or 6, since they were at the TDC.

I don't know much about where the valves will be at when 180 degrees out on the camshaft.

Does someone know what valves are open/closed when the cam is out by 180 degrees? Is there a way to check if the valve is bent without removing the head...because replacing the head gasket will be last thing I want to do on it! If nothing could be bent due to the fact that valves are closed at 180 degrees out, what could be stuck?

Thank you all in advance.

Phong

You're probably better to remove the cam and reinstall with everything at TDC. Try and start it and hope for the best.

Sorry I forgot to mention that I pulled the cam out as soon as I realised it was out 180 degrees before putting the sprocket on...couldn't put the sprocket on anyway. Moved the cam where it was meant to, tightened the rockers down again and put the sprocket on, cam chain tension put back together and tried to turn it over but got stuck at one point.

I will pull it all out again...dummy fit the cam to my spare head and see where the valves sit when at 180 out. Hopefully all the valves are closed.

Remove the cam and look at your installed valve heights, you will soon see if you bent a valve, or with the cam removed connect up a fitting and put low pressure air into each cylinder be careful.

Might be easier to view Phong if you get a long steel rule or similar and place the edge on the valve stem tops.

Finally had the chance last week to put everything back together properly.

So it turned out one of the lifters was stuck on an angle in one of the rocker arms and was not on the valve stem, so the engine would not turn over at that point. Lucky I did not force it at this point!

I checked the valve stem heights and they were all dead even, which gave me a sigh of relief! However after removing the rocker assembly, I found 2 of the rocker arms were cracked where the lifters sit, so I replaced them with spare parts I had from the old engine. The rocker arm with the stuck lifter was odd, as the lifter would not go in properly, so I had to replace that one too. Lucky for hording spare parts! Put it all back together with the cam at TDC and then engine turned without an issue.

Put everything back together and the car started up first go. A few noisy lifters for the first 15 mins and silence after that. Found my exhaust manifold bolts were finger loose, so I tightened them up and the exhaust sounded much better, engine was quieter and it idled just right. Took it for a drive around the block without issues.

Thanks again for your help guys! It was good to see the car up and running again