P38A White smoke at start.....every start

Latest update: heads skimmed, new gaskets fitted, everything rebuilt. No clouds.
Turned the key, started but ran dog at idle. Gave it a very short run and it was still poo. Putting the HT leads onto the coil pack correctly sorted that out, but....
Its still running rough at idle. Not as bad. It drives a lot better but it's still not quite there.
Question: I labelled everything up so everything went back where it came from....with the possible exception of the rocker shafts. The question is, if I've installed shaft A onto head B and vice versa, a) would it run at all, and b) if it would run and if that's what I have done might it be 'near enough' that it will run but poorly?
2nd question: would Nanocom tell me? (Might have to nip round to Odyssey's with me puppy dog eyes.)

We pushed them through holes in a piece of cardboard marked up with where they came from. Got a feeling mixing them up might not be a good idea.

When I replaced my valley gasket I did over a couple of weekends meaning that the battery was disconnected for a while , when finished and I fired it up mine also ran rough on tick over for a few days, I think it does that whilst the ECU relearns the fuel trims. May be worth driving around for a while to see if it settles down.

Grrrrrr said:

We pushed them through holes in a piece of cardboard marked up with where they came from. Got a feeling mixing them up might not be a good idea.

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Yeah, did that too for the rods, I mean the actual rocker shaft.
Good plan PPP38vouge, I'll see what happens over the coming week.

When I did my heads a few years back I remember the lumpy idle. Took it for a good drive of about 20 miles which sorted it out.

Parts that have been in contact with each other should always be reassembled as they were. That would not cause the engine to run badly but could lead to exaggerated mechanical wear. Get the fuel trims reset with Nanocom.

Won't the engine run rough on the first start-up till the tappets fill with oil?

tomcat59alan said:

Won't the engine run rough on the first start-up till the tappets fill with oil?

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Would run even rougher if the tappets have expanded and the engine has not been turned two revolutions to check for fouls before it is started.

wammers said:

Would run even rougher if the tappets have expanded and the engine has not been turned two revolutions to check for fouls before it is started.

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Kerwreckt.