maurice - all good puts.
since i have an oil leak and it's the first obvious point of breach from the engine internals to the environment, i'll look there first for vacumm leak issues. once i resolve that, i will pull the plugs & examine each to try & pinpoint the issue to a single cylinder, single bank, or all cylinders / all banks.
your MAF questions are good. looking at my ST FTRM readouts, you'll notice that once cylinder is trying to lean itself & the other is trying to enrich itself. if the MAF were the issue, we'd see similar rather than opposing trends between the banks. looking at these numbers, my guess is that if i allow the engine to run a bit longer, the adaptation will eventually move me out of the 'normal' range and i'll get a 'LEAN LIMIT' code, meaning that the engine is running too rich for the DME to compensate. i will, however, disconnect the MAF & give it a test run just in case.
the next order of business will be to check for vacuum leaks. i'll do this with propane & a visual / audible inspection.
hopefully by the time i get to this point, something will be obvious. if not, i will need to revalidate the camshaft timing. i'm positive i verified it as spot on prior to putting the enigine in the car, so i bet we'll find the problem before we get here.....
in the meantime, here are a few more photos of the installation:
engine bay:
airbox (i will add a hose to the airbox inlet that elbows over to the body inlet to ensure cold air only):
close-up of the too-tall tranny mounts:
