I have a 2007 E63 that I have rebuilt. I had the Heads rebuilt (8 Valves were bent!) and installed New Headbolts, a new Power Steering Pump and HP Hose, New Racing Brakes, pads, referb'd OEM front AirStruts, F1 Adjustable Camber Front Control Arms, new torque Arms, Shorty Headers, Refurb'd Intake by RMT, and so on.... I then tried to start it with the STAR Computer hooked up and it ran for maybe 30-40 seconds before I turned it off as it sounded so bad. It was seemingly starving for gas but I couldn't be sure the timing wasn't at fault either, even though I was very careful making sure the Crank was at 40 before and after tightening the Cam Adjusters down. Well, I tried starting it the next day after taking time to review the STAR Diagnostics, but it wouldn't turn over! So I busted out the long torque wrench to try turning the Crank, but it was a no go!! I tried turning it backwards (counterclockwise) and it would gradually go but not easily.

I then took the valve covers off and saw one of the Cam Adjusters was a little loose in that I could see a gap between the Cap and the middle section!! I thought this may have been due to me both not having tightening the CA tight enough after reassembley as I had disassembled them all via Tasos' instructions after installing the Heads and discovered that the prior mechanic had literally installed the inner sprockets of each of the Passenger Side CA's backwards which caused for the Cam to NOT mate with the inner face of the CA!!! Crazy! It's amazing the car even ran well at all during my test drive prior to purchase!!

Nevertheless, I took out all the spark plugs in order to safely rotate the Crankshaft to TDC in order to install the tools to remove the CA's, as they were also not in alignment. In doing so, I noticed, as I was rotating the Crankshaft clockwise (whereas I wasn't unable to do so before taking out the spark plugs), fuel first coming out of the second piston from the firewall on the drivers side (closest to the fuel line) so I promptly sucked it out with a mini Pump. After that was done, I still was slowly cranking towards TDC and noticed the same from the first piston! As such, this Fuel Hydrolock must have been the reason I could not, nor could the starter, turn the Crank prior to removing the spark plugs! I carefully absorbed any and all oil/gas from under the Exhaust Cam afterwards, btw...

So after thinking I may have done serious damage, like a bent valve or rod, it seems that fuel hydrolock was the reason for the No Start the following day. Although I can't rule out a faulty injector even though I did pay to have them all tested while the Heads were off, my concern has to do with the Fuel Rail starting out empty. It seems as gas was being pumped into the empty fuel rail, the first two injectors were robbing all the fuel and filling up each cylinder? This may be why it sounded so aweful during the 30-40 seconds and why STAR reported misfires in 6 of 8 cylinders afterwards!!!

I'm guessing it would be a good idea, although not mentioned on any of these forums, to manually fill up the fuel rail and then connect it to the fuel line!!! I'm thinking this way, all the injectors will have gas at first start. There may be a pocket of air in the fuel line before it hits the rail, but hopefully that will be minimized my manually filling it up beforehand. I'm thinking the secondary benefit would be visually seeing whether or not any of the injectors are open prior to install?? Wish me luck and hopefully someone with experience can chime in as it sort of blows me away all these guys that have done thier Heads and such and NOT mentioned this problem that could be otherwise avoided!!!

Needless to say, I took off the visibly improper Cam Adjuster and put it back together again using fresh oil everywhere except using brakleen where the diamond washer sits. I'll have to remove the others as well since the Crank is about an 1/8" off TDC in relation to the Cams. I sure hope to hear before starting her again someone chime in on bleeding the fuel rail?

Ok, so I removed the fuel rail and couldn't help but notice that the second injector from the firewall Driver's side (Cylinder #7) was clearly dripping fuel! I also noticed on one of the other injectors that the lower collar which secures the lower O'ring was cracked. I then took my wireless borescope sync'd to my iPad and took a look down the 7th cylinder injector hole and noticed a pool of fuel in each Intake runner! No question now that it was that injector which caused the hydrolock after shutdown! Needless to say, I sucked out the remaining fuel and used the scope to look down every hole including spark plug holes to make sure no other fuel was anywhere. And for the hell of it, since I had to take the Y piece for the air Intake out in order to remove the fuel rail, I thought I'd take a look into the Lower chamber of the Air Intake. What I saw was a very shallow pool of fuel both close to the firewall (mostly) and another beyond that too! Because the lower chamber is ribbed, those pools were distinct and separate so I then used a medium wide wire hose brush and wrapped it with 3 blue Scott Shop Towels and secured the high end of it with some duct tape. With one hand I held the scope to view and with the other I very gingerly positioned the end of the towels in the first pool to absorb the fuel, which it very clearly did effectively! It took several tries with fresh towels each time and then a little swiping back and forth to get it all up, as well as some of the fresh silver paint from the interior of my brand new Intake! I can't say enough how much that little, actually NOT so little as the bendable cord is about 15' long, borescope has paid for itself many times over! I never would have caught that pool in the Intake otherwise!! I hate to think what might have happened if I tried starting her up with that fuel sitting in there! I must say that I'm a little concerned that there may be some fuel lingering in the Intakes Upper Chamber too possibly, right? I mean, if the injector is downstream of the Intake, in order for fuel to go upstream into the Intake and settle on the floor of the Intake, coupled with the fact that I sucked a total of at least a pint of gas out of the two cylinder chamber's, Intake Runners and bottom of the Intake, fuel must have pushed upwards past the Intake Valves into the top chamber in order to settle in the lower chamber, right? And as I think of it, fuel probably went down the Exhaust valves too drivers side, so that means I may have to replace the 02 sensors now if they were fouled. I'll have to verify with STAR after I get everything hooked back up to do a Scan. Hopefully the Cat isn't completely trashed too!