Thanks Man!
Priming was pretty easy. I used to have a cheap Harbor Freight bulb on the fuel line, which worked great until the valve broke.
I use a plastic bottle and shop vac: I melt a hole in the bottle into which I insert the return line, pushed down to the bottom of the bottle so that the fuel doesn't go into my vaccuum, and then I fit my vacuum over the top of the bottle. I've been doing this for awhile. It works well.
I had a bit of trouble getting the motor to start, mainly on account of air still in the lines, but I think also because the timing is too far advanced. My idle is too low -- it shakes unless I have the cold start engaged.
But otherwise, it runs far better than ever before. It's kind of amazing.
The power difference is huge.
I see 15-18 PSI of boost all the way to redline. High RPM power is incredibly improved and the power band is overall far smoother. There is little to no smoke. The motor is even significantly quieter.
Also, for the first time ever, it starts with just a flick of the key.
I'll fix the timing and see if that sorts my idle. If not, I'll have to adjust the idle setting. It's hard to believe that Giles wouldn't have set the idle correctly. If it's not the timing, maybe the PO fussed with the idle. All of the paint markings on the adjustments are still in place, so it will be easy to see if it's been changed.
The one other problem is that my accelerator cable isn't quite right. I really didn't want to remove the lever: I have a couple that I've modified previously (one is just bent, and the other is both bent and has a new hole drilled for the ball). The PO used this pump in a van, and the lever is workable, but the bracket was unmodified and sticks up way too far. On my old pump, I bent the bracket and modified the lever both so that the geometry would be okay and I'd get full range of motion. I was able to use my bracket with this lever, but I had to max out all the cable and lever adjustments to make the cable reach, and it just barely does. The geometry is not good and so the pedal doesn't feel right.
I didn't want to remove the lever. The pump has all three of the lever springs (my last pump was modified to use just one), which are a pain. A few times in the past I've lost the original position of the lever on the splines. (Either because I tried to remove just the top part of the lever assembly but couldn't keep the lower, splined part in place and didn't mark it, or because my markings weren't good enough.) I never had much trouble finding the correct position of the lever, but I didn't want to risk this at least until I got the motor running.
--
My power modifications, aside from increased boost and the pump, are an intercooler and very free flowing intake and exhaust. I did a brief highway run and could accelerate quite well over 65 mph, at partial throttle. My top speed now is higher than I really have any business taking the van.
The increased high rpm power is very helpful for a heavy van: With my previous pumps, acceleration up grades was sometimes not good, because I was at too high an rpm in one gear and too low in the next.
I used to see full boost only within a fairly narrow range. As I approached redline, it would drop. Now I'm seeing 15-18 psi at pretty much any RPM.
The K03 now seems just right for this application.
Indeed, the only thing I would care to improve is performance off the line, and a bigger turbo (unless a VNT) could make this worse. First gear is quite short (even though I have a aircooled trans, which has taller gears than the original diesel trans) and the shift to second places me at a low RPM unless I rev the hell out of the motor. Cars behind me sometimes get very close during that 1st-2nd shift.