VANOS / Cam help

[russde]

Well I finally got around to installing my S50 cams last weekend as well as the entire cooling system.
Cam install went fine using the Pelican DIY. Vanos install went fine as well. Upon restart the car sounde like a diesel. Noise was traced to the vanos area so I disassembled and retimed the cams and vanos with the same results. A third retiming resulted similarly.
Some research on the here resulted in a thread with an attached audio file which sounded just like my car. Jeff525525 retrofitted the spring plate and two thrust plates from the S50 engine to his M50 and the noise was eliminated.
I put in the updated spring and thrust plates last night. The horrible VANOS noise at idle was gone and I thought I had it licked.
However, the car doesn't want to idle. At first I thought it was my new D'Sylva chip for the s50 cams so I put my Dinan chip back in, with the same results. I can really work with the throttle and finally get the car to idle at throttle but with any release of the throttle the car refuses to idle, one bounce and then it dies. Will start right back up.
I decided to try to drive the car anyway to see if the DME just needed some 'learning' time. Before the end of the block I had the RPM's at a gentle 2k and instantly was rewarded with a horrible VANOS rattle ( boy, I sure hope it's VANOS rattle). I turned around and went back, keeping the RPM's below 2k.
Oh well, at least thus far I've learned to R & R the valve and VANOS covers with expertise.
Any suggestions welcome,
Russ

[russde]

Well, it turned out to be human error. Mine.
I disassembled everything yesterday and started to reassemble last night, this time following every single step in the Pelican diy instead of relying on memory.
I had completely forgotten step three in the write up. Offsetting the intake cam primary chain sprocket is essential. I realized that I had neglected to do this on the last install and decided to also clean the ICV to hopefully eliminate a fluctuating idle from before this whole fiasco.
Got everything buttoned back up this afternoon and all seems good so far. I am waiting for the car to cool down now so that I can ensure the cooling system is bled, then I'll take it for a shakedown run.
Cheers,