Ok today I changed the engine oil with 10w 50 penrite synthetic and its much much better in terms of smoothness and vibrations. Not back to its pre touched self, but I'm hoping the rest of the vibrations will even out, although I am doubtful. Its possible that when I sprayed the crap out of the blow off valve with carb cleaner a lot of it got sucked into the turbo and somehow made it into the engine oil diluting it and making it more watery. Same with running past the piston rings.
I have to say I have been feeling pretty gut wrenched about not doing the job right and in a hurry, but there was so much gunk and i just kept spraying and spraying.
Whats funny is the car now has a much more pronounced typical RB25 or 26 sound, with a lot more backfires under off low throttle conditions and rawness to it coming out the exhaust, whereas before it was more like a patrol engine. Smooth and wispy. Probably 15 years of carbon build up gave the metal parts a nice cushion and now there is more direct metal to metal contact. It almost sounds like a WRX relatively speaking.
Even though the idle smoothened out, when I slowly rise the rpm in neutral and hold it a certain level, say 2000 it still vibrates a lot more than I am used to, then smoothens out a bit between 2000 and 3000rpm, then gets a shaky again at 3300, then smoothens out at the higher rpms. Hmm.
Whats funny is the rich smell is still there but its getting less and less. It leads me to believe there was some pool of carby cleaner still left over somewhere, maybe in the intake, blow of valve or within the turbo system. I say that because I also sprayed the crap out of the blow off valve.
You mean because the valves sit on the inside of the combustion chamber and when they close they rest flush against the metal upwards meaning the cannot be pushed up any further? Yea that makes sense, but it could certainly score them or scratch them making a less than perfect seating?
Im not so sure if I locked it at any stage... The engine didn't try to turn over and lock up at any stage. Just crank without starting and took a few good minutes to get going.
I guess I can always easily check if I bent a rod buy simply checking the heights of the corresponding pistons through the spark plug holes and seeing if they match up in height.
Ive never heard of subies cylinder cleaner but I'll look into it. Is that like seafoam? No chance of doing any damage by following instructions I take it? I have heard of seafoam causing damage even when instructions are followed