Help with my poor 22re

[the_experience03]

My poor truck....I don't know what can be said of it. It's done me well, but it is starting to suffer from more severe and ore frequent mechanical ailments. I have solved my recent cooling issues, electrical issues, drivetrain issues (snapped spline on the driveshaft, actually ), etc. The real pain is that I haven't done any of this damage while 'wheeling. I expect to have to fix stuff after a trail run, but not on my way to work.

Anyway....here's my latest problem and it had me baffled so maybe someone else might have some ideas. I've devloped a rather nasty low RPM miss....between 800-1500 RPMs, but only when idling and not under load it seems. That itself wouldn't bother me, but on the way up the hill in Duluth yesterday after the rain, I took off from a stoplight. Wet concrete, Super Swampers, and a welded differential don't do so hot together so I sat and spun a little until I had enough torque to pullthe tires in second gear which dropped my torque to stop spinning....kind of a catch-22. Well when I hit second gear I had a MASSIVE miss. We're talking the kind that makes you think you're going to see con-rods real soon. It missed all the way into the Cub Foods parking lot where we parked and went in shopping. On the way back down the hill it seemed fine, but I was engine braking the whole time so it really isn't a fair comparison.

This morning I thought I would start fixing it by replacing the easy stuff. It has a new cap, rotor, plug wires, and plugs. I ran some ATF through the throttle body and down to the injectors to clean them via a vacuum hose (a neat trick that works rather well). I checked my valve lash and found it to be just slightly on the loose end of spec. The fuel filter is new as is the tank, sending unit, pump, etc. Compressions are low (it's tired), but even across three of the cylinders. The 4th cylinder leaks down slightly and has forever. I know I need a new headgasket at some point, but it's not using water through there yet so it can't be THAT bad. EVERYTHING seems normal to me. But I still have that low RPM miss......

Anybody out there see something that I'm missing here? I'm hoping to do the 7mge (Supra I-6) swap next year, but I need to make it that long first .

[Coma]

I'm not sure if by saying you cleaned the injectors that you have a fuel injected truck, or by being old and tired that it is carburated. If it is the latter, you may need to look at the floats. They could be leaking or need adjusting. Your timing or Vacuum advance could be messed up too.

Just my $0.02.

[Kirbystud]

Well I don't know all the fax's but my thoughts are going to the throttle position sensor........

[the_experience03]

22re in Toyota speak=

22=22nd time the bore and/or stroke of this particualr family of engines has been changed.

R=the letter designation of the family.

E=electronic multipoint fuel injection

Other letters such as "Z" would indicate dual overhead cams, a "T" would indicate a turbo, etc. Once you learn Toyota engine speak it's pretty easy to figure out what you're dealing with.


Ok...that was my long winded way of saying that yes, it is fuel injected (I would never offroad with a carb).

As for the sensors....every sensor that was easily accesible was checked against tolerance values with my ohm meter. All of them checked out. I too thought maybe one of the sensor was giving me trouble as I have a somewhat heavy unburnt fuel smell in my exhaust at idle that goes away higher in the RPM band indicating perhaps a rich mixture around idle, but as best as I can tell.....Also, I'm still getting 16 mpg mixed, 18 mpg highway so I can't be dumping THAT much extra fuel around. It might only be a 4 cylinder, but it's trying to push something around with aerodynamics akin to a two story outhouse.

Any other ideas out there? It appears to be drivable as is. The big miss is gone, but that certainly was indicative of some sort of problem and its driving me nuts not to know

[the_experience03]

The big miss is back in style, actually. This time I think it came with a warped/cracked head. I'm going to pull the head tomorrow to see if MAYBE I can just get away with a new headgasket (and timing set as long as I'm in there), but more than likely I'm going to buy a Nippon Racing head for it for about $230. Then I get to pay to have the valveseats ground to accept my big stainless valves as well as pay to have them installed along with a new .440 lift long duration cam. I'll throw my header on there too and clean the injectors while it's apart. I figure my head is probably toast....I do NOT want to do this job more than once....so I'll just do it right and rebuild the whole top end of the motor since it's relatively cost effective.

Thanks for the ideas and wish me luck....there sure seems to be a lot of "stuff" attached to that head....

[Jarlaxle]

Might be easier, cheaper, & have greater rewards to just ditch the hamster wheel for a 3800 Buick or 4.3 Vortec Chevy V6.

[the_experience03]

Believe me....I looked at motor swaps, but by the time you factor in adaptors, wiring, motor mounts, and ultimately time....rebuilding in frame is the best solution. If I were going to do a motor swap it would be to a 7mge, the 3.0 liter inline 6 out of an early Supra. Working engines are inlines

I've been working on the truck as much as possible while waiting for parts. Here's the goodies list.

Nippon Racing and Engineering head (reworked for flow and cooling)
Downey Offroad header
1 mm oversize swirl polished valves on both sides
balanced and blueprinted injectors
Toyota Racing Development Stage 1 or 2 cam (I haven't decided how much efi tuning I want to do)

Along with this there will be all new gaskets, some serious internal cleaning, new rings and bearings, a new timing set, new oil pump, etc....all the stuff a person should replace when doing this much disassembly work.

All told I should have 140 hp and 165 ft lbs at the crank which is plenty from a very simple long stroke, tall deck 4 banger.

[busone]

Did you check the O2 sensor? I had a Nissan truck that never ran right. The head was trashed so I replaced that but she still ran like ****. I finally decided to pull the pass seat to get to the computer. I got the err codes and a bunch of sensors came up. The check engien light never came on which amazed me. Turns out the previous owner pulled the light bulb out of the check engine light.

The O2 sensor was NOT one of the sensors that came up in the error codes. I decided to replace it anyway. After the O2 sensor was replaced the truck ran great.

Because of that bad sensor the truck would run hot. I sure it had been overheated and that is what caused the head damage.

[the_experience03]

I'm not too worried about sensors as they are just glorified rheostats...carb tuning is easier than just placing a resister inline to increase voltage? I think not.....hehe.......call it a generation gap.......I'll NEVER own a carbed vehicle.

Oh yeah....the O2 sensor isn't spitting any codes. I'll let you know what I have to do to tune the OBD-I multiport fuel injection as I go along.