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I'm not going to lie, I didn't do a thing Saturday except binge watch zombies and lay around the house, and it was exactly as wonderful and perfect as I thought it would be. Good rest, physically and mentally.
Sunday I was up and out working from about 9:00am to 7:00pm. I adjusted the cam gear from 5 to 3 degrees - worse. I tried 7 degrees, and even 10, rechecking and resetting the ignition timing every time. At every setting, I would drive the rig around the neighborhood (about a mile or so) and return to the house. I wanted to check and see which setting gave the best pickup, and which one was the worst. At 3 degrees, she was running much hotter than the other settings, and the higher ones seemed better (5-7 had the best low end torque / pickup, but 10 gave the best 2000-3000 rpm performance IMHO). I went back through the entire vacuum hose system and eliminated even more, and finally got it to where it wasn't surging or had any type of leak. At 10 degrees advanced on the adjustable cam gear, I realized that amount was basically one full link on the timing chain, and upon further inspection (with the cam gear set back to zero), I realized that the upper cam dowel was probably a full link off from the bottom crank keys from being at 12 O'clock (perfectly vertical) Soooo....I was off originally, and hopefully that didn't mess anything up. So I took the whole cam sprocket off, advanced the chain in the direction I was off, and with some sweat and cursing, was able to get it back on there. Of course now, the dizzy needed to jump an entire cog, so I played with it some to get it back in alignment, but nightfall came too quickly to get it back up and running, and by that time I needed a break.
At pretty much any speed, theres a nasty noise coming from what sounds like the 4th chamber. It may just be some mis-adjusted valves with too much gap (I set them cold to .09 and .13 and readjusted and check them warm at .08 and .12), but I'm afraid it could also be a wrist pin failure, a bent valve, bearing out, or piston slap that occurred from the timing being so off in the beginning and causing a collision or something else. Then again, it could be something as minor as an exhaust leak near the rear of the header. It doesn't give me hope though. I even thought it may be the starter hitting the flywheel again and swapped the 3/16" spacers I have on the starter currently (took away the ticking last time) with some 3/8" ones.....however, that was too much as the starter wouldn't even engage the flywheel at that point and I ended up going back with the 3/16" ones.
I'll try to get some pictures of the cam gear where it stands now, and maybe even a video of the intermittent noise the motor is making to see what you guys think. If I can get the distributor back where it needs to go to get it running now that the cam and crank are aligned, I'll play with the adjustable cam gear settings some more. However, I may also just swap that thing out for the original solid dual chain sprocket until I get it running right to take one more adjustment out of the system.
Mechanic stethoscope worth every penny for locating engine noises..
In mine somewhere was the horrible tapping sounds, at first I was sure it was the valve train, I found cylinder #3 to have improper lash on both sides intake was loose and exhaust was tight. When I restart it was no difference from beforehand. Maybe the valve cover was impacted From over tighten acorn nuts, so I backed them off to finger tight and got no change at all. Thinking the grommets were squished and pinched, so a little looser on the acorn and pried the grommets up and tighten the acorn to just barely seal, not a bit of difference. Back them off again and inspecting the gasket it looks to be protruding maybe to much like it rolled so lever it in flush and pretty hand tighten the acorns. At this point I'm about ready to Dremel down the oil baffle so lifted the rear of the cover enough to leak, it's still not a bit of change. Now I am thinking valve impact, wrist pins, or I am crazy..
Probe along both sides of the head, up and down the block along the oil pan, as im laying under the bellhousing just staring at it is obviously coming from the intake side, now that the fan isn't droning and obscuring the sound origin. I crawl atop the engine and it's for sure the intake side at the rear, something along and under the plenum...
It's the injectors clattering specifically #4's clatter rebounding off the firewall. which I just didn't think would be that much louder than I remember the 94 being.. but those are different style/type and speced..
I've got an auto stethoscope....it's definitely coming from the rear of the motor (put it on the valve cover studs as I've switched to wingnuts), but never thought to try it on the injectors. I did pick up another 90's motor ($50) because it's the same as my '89 for spare parts (throttle body, tps, vsv's, etc) and will send those injectors off to be balanced as soon as I can. I'll also double check the valve clearance just to be sure.
I've been completely swamped with work and punch list favors as of late and haven't had a chance to get anything done on either rig.
I talked to the local race engine machine shop and took some photos of the adjustable cam and timing issues up there. The guy was really honest and told me he'd have to spend twice as much time researching and doublechecking the correct tolerances and specs for it than he actually would working on it (but could recite anything for a sbc) and I was appreciative of how clear cut he was about it. They forwarded me to a Japanese racing engine place that was much more into turbos and boost on their supra motors and building / programming standalone ECU's than a basic 22RE. Can't really get anyone local to take a look at it, and I'm kind of at a loss. I'm going to spend one day this weekend working on it trying to get it up and running playing with the crank to cam timing (will try to post a video of the rear engine noise), but I may end up just pulling it and shipping it to LCE.
I've got most of the parts in to get the black '86 up and running and may try to make it my daily until I can get the motor in the '89 fixed and back. I'm at least going to finish getting the last sliding window rebuilt and installed along with the tailgate and it's glass so I can take off the tarp that's been on it.
There's a complete verified running '86 turbo motor on craigslist with the proper bellhousing, complete wiring harness and ECU for $750 that's looking really tempting right now....
There's a complete verified running '86 turbo motor on craigslist with the proper bellhousing, complete wiring harness and ECU for $750 that's looking really tempting right now....
Is that a R150 bellhouse? I would, if my finding still allowed, drive down to snatch that up! last one I saw guy wouldn't separate from the engine and wanted a metric f ton for.
Turbo motor sold (with the bellhousing). '89's just been sitting. Still not 100% what I'm going to do, but I'm leaning towards just pulling the motor and shipping it off. The last thing I want to do is run it while something's off and have it hand grenade on me, ruining all the parts / etc. that I've got in it so far.
That probably being the direction I'm headed, I've been trying to work on getting the Black '86 up and running as my daily until I can get the motor fixed in the '89. Picked up the Cat Back exhaust (original was totally rusted through), a MAF (backup for the '89 Supra one), mirrors, thermostat neck with sensor (was borrowed to get a buddy's truck running), and a few other small parts I needed from a guy parting one out this weekend (I may go back and get the transfer case for duals later). I got the locks in, door panels on, weatherstripping for the front doors, and got the tailgate ready for the glass to go back in. All windows except for the rear are in and sealed up and I'm down to just the tailgate, dash, and front seats. Also picked up new wires, cap / rotor, plugs, K&N air filter, and a few other things to get it ready to fire up, but didn't get that far. Hoping to cover the dash and Inclinometer for the '89 in Neoprene this week some time so I can move the one in it now over to the '86 and get it buttoned up. We'll see if the weather wants to cooperate, and what kind of spare time I'll have.
After much debate, and quite a bit more than a good college try.....
I appreciate everyone that follows this little build thread. Hopefully I've been somewhat helpful to someone up to this point....whether it be from something I've done or modified and documented that you haven't seen elsewhere on this site, or just my shear persistence with this motor build. After pulling it and tearing it down 7 times, I've finally decided just to send it off and have someone who knows a lot more about these motors than I do take a look at it and get it running the way it should be. I wrote a long letter to Wes @ LC Engineering explaining all of the woes I've gone through and in spite of having all top notch parts, it's still not running. They VERY GRACIOUSLY agreed to let me send this nightmare to them and they'll do a full rebuild on it with the parts that are already there, replacing only what they need to in order to get it back to specifications and will basically be and LCE Crate Motor (Stage 2.5 or so) when I get it back. I offered to send the entire motor in completely torn down and bubble wrapped in boxes, but they were interested in the issues it was having and wanted to run it on the dyno before they tore it down, so I'll be shipping in the entire longblock with the Dizzy and everything still on. The more and more I think about it, I think the original machine shop was completely apathetic towards the whole thing and probably caused most of the issues. I'm sure I've caused my fair share as well.
In the mean time, I'm going to try and get the black '86 running and all put back together so I can be driving it in the mean time and be able to get it up to the shop to finish the bumpers and nerf bars. Hopefully it'll be tagged, registered, drive-able, and ready to sell by the time I get the Red Top motor back.
I had some family stuff to do this weekend, but managed to stay up till 2:30am Friday night / Saturday morning and got the motor pulled (while raining, in the dark, on a gravel driveway...ugg). Getting it loaded in the truck was fun, and then getting it out of the back of the truck, up to the Dock Height at my office was another adventure. The Camera on my phone is busted, so I didn't get any pics of me pulling it....so here's a few of it in the crate:
youre gonna keep us updated on what they find, right?
most definitely...I'm extremely curious myself. If it's just a crank to cam timing issue I will have blown a bunch of Jefferson's on shipping and diagnosis and may just take it back running, however...especially after all of my woes, I really want something I can be confident in its reliability. I had talked in person with multiple machine shops here in Dallas, but like the girl whose been cheated on one too many times, I have trust issues and none of the shops really specialized in these motors or wanted to mess with the headache. LCE said I'll have to pay them for the rebuild and whatever parts they may need to get (gasket set, New rings, bearings, etc...might be a couple of grr, but at this point I've invested so much money already and I'm not even going to add up the time and have a nice shiny boat anchor presently), but would try to reuse as many parts as possible because they're all basically new. I'm confident whatever happens, I'll finally have the bulletproof 4 angry Japanese squirrels I've been trying to get.
Good. Man, its been like a Days of Our Lives soap opera every time i read your build thread. But im looking forward to seeing you actually get to enjoy your truck. Long time coming and it WILL be worth it.
It's supposed to be cold and rainy all weekend, but I'm looking forward to it. Why? No punch lists of stuff to do for others, not going out of town, not having to work all weekend on a project for work.......I'm actually going to have the entire weekend to work on Toyota stuff, so even with the gloomy grey sky hanging overhead, and the promise of wet weather, I'm happy because it may actually be productive.
The black '86 4Runner only needs the rear glass put back into the tailgate and then the tailgate to be bolted on to finally have all of the windows back in it. All the fluids have been changed and I've given it a full tune up, but need to put in the air filter and a few other things before cranking it up. Still haven't found a set of front seats for it yet, but I'm looking, and I may steal the ones out of my rig to bolt in for the mean time just so I can get it up and ready to drive. I've got to finish up covering the dash for my rig in Neoprene so that I can steal the grey dash out of mine for the '86 (some minor fiberglass work on filling in some of the cracks and stuff, and I'll need to spray the lower portion with bedliner as I'll be shooting all of the grey plastic parts in my interior with it at some point). There's also a few minor other things that need to happen to the interior of the '86 that I can be working on, seatbelts, rear seats bolted in, other panels bolted down, etc. Heck, I may even pull the turbo block (and potentially the $50 spare block) up on the porch and tear it down and put all of the parts into a rough tote to be fully rebuilt sometime later (may have some exciting news about that coming up). I'll try to remember to take the camera from work home so I can get some pictures as my phone is still busted.
The guy from LCE is on Spring break this week, so the red top motor is still sitting in the crate on the dock, and will probably be picked up sometime next week.
Wes helped me with my cam / crank timing issue that I couldn't quite diagnose. I really love LCE. I'll pay a little extra for this or that because they've done nothing but good customer service for me. Their in house quality is so clutch. You'll be happy.
On most things, I'd say. I still have never gotten any response or admittance that their 22ret radiators don't fit, are regular 22re rads, and require the shroud to be modified. Other than that, so far, I'd agree.
Well, you know me...always trying to plan out the long game and I love a good bargain. My original plan was to build the red motor, throw it in the '89 and enjoy a good 10-15 years out of it. I was going to use that turbo block, with the h-beam rods, forged pistons (lower compression, but it'd still work), centerforce clutch, etc, to build up a motor to throw those Weber side drafts on and try to find a '79-'83 long bed 4x4 with a blown motor on the cheap. Sometimes plans change a bit based on unforseen circumstances.
so I found a crazy deal on something and think I may change those plans. Finances will dictate the timeline as always. Picked this up today from a guy that had just bought it.
the guy was fixing up a truck for his son, and when I got there it was more like a straight up garage sale of things they had bought and changed their minds (son thought the truck was "too fast". Said it dyno-ed at almost 400HP?). He threw in 650cc injectors, an in-cab boost adjuster, a stainless skid plate (going to the '86), and even threw in a Smittybilt 9500 for kicks (also going on the '86....I'll keep the warn I rebuilt for a rear winch for mine). Did I mention the intercooler? Yeah, threw one of those in as well. Everything from LCE.
so my plan now is to get the red-top motor back from LCE and throw it in the '89 4Runner with the stock efi. Whenever I can afford the parts (may be a while) I need to rebuild the turbo block, I'll keep the pistons and just re-ring it and rebuild it as a turbo with whatever else I may need to buy. Then I'll have to get the SDS fuel management system, and I'll probably drop the turbo motor into the 4Runner and use the red-top for the webers in hopes of a first gen longbed truck, or second gen extended cab.
I'm not going to tell you how little I paid...(it would have been a deal just for the turbo, waste gate, and manifold...not to mention the other gear he threw in), or how far I drove....they're both embarrassing.
01-23-2017, 10:02 AM
