NewToYota

After owning the 4Runner for a couple of weeks now I have put several hundred miles on it and I'm reasonably confident that my blind tap and thread insert are going to hold up. That being said, it is time for a full tune up. The previous owner took acceptable care of the aesthetics, but appears to have slacked on the mechanical side of things. Fortunately it was a young man who didn't own it too terribly long and it appears his father who owned it prior for many years did upkeep the vehicle. With plugs, air/oil filter and 6 quarts of motor oil I crawled under the vehicle to begin the process. I removed the drain plug and began inspection of suspension components out of habit and immediately noticed the driver's side stabilizer bar end link just chilling in the wheel. Passenger side is rusty but still connected. Truck has a death wobble when braking and is loose at highway speed which I attributed to the front rotors which are on the list for this weekend. I know many people drive daily with the sway bar disconnected, but this cannot help the sloppiness with which this vehicle currently handles. Moving on I went back to the engine compartment to change out the air filter while oil was draining and found a fully furnished rodent penthouse in the air box. The vehicle sat at a local fire station for two moths prior to my purchase and that backs up to a large farm field and cemetery. I believe this was built in preparation for the upcoming winter. Fortunately no critters had moved in yet and even more fortuitous was the fact the critters didn't use any 4runner parts for construction. So out the window went the idea of just a filter swap. At the end of two days of working on this mixed in with normal chores I have changed into NGK plugs, swapped over to Mobil full synthetic, removed air system up to the intake including throttle body and cleaned all components. I have also replaced the factory sway bar end links with Moogs (I know, I know), put my new $32 stereo into the gaping hole left in the dash from the removal of the previous owner's "system" and modified the throttle body intake gasket to eliminate the factory obstruction which I believe is to act as a noise baffle or air turbulence builder for torque. I'm sure most of this is just 'kid's stuff' for longtime owners, but I will post the sway bar changeover, mouse house, throttle body and MAF cleaning and the gasket mod with pics. Oh, also pulled the EFI last night to reset and ran some Lucas injector cleaner for about 50 miles before I parked in garage for the tuneup. My first tank of gas netted me a whopping 14.4 mpg so I will update this thread and hopefully that will increase as things progress. Off for dinner and then pics coming.

NewToYota

Pictures are coming as promised, but I wanted to do a quick update and share my satisfaction with the result of the tune up. At the time of previous post I had not started the motor yet after work, nor had I finished connecting the upper bolts and bushings on the sway bar links so I got a bit ahead of myself. Moog sway links have gone back to Advance Auto as the links were good, but were packaged with the incorrect cup washers and upper bushings. I was pretty bummed because I was excited to get poly instead of rubber on this rig, but will try again this weekend and update.
Now to the good stuff. I fired up the vehicle for the first time a little after previous post. I had been having cold starts at 1500rpm and I was hoping to bring that way down. It initially fired up at 1300 and climbed to 1700 before I stepped on the gas. It dropped to 1100 and began climb again. After about 20 minutes and wanting to save frustration I closed shop for the evening. I expected the vehicle to behave erratically for a few moments considering all of the cleaning and the modification to the throttle body gasket. The mass airflow alone was completely full of grease and dirt and packed quite well into the concave region where the sensor wires are. That being said I didn't expect the idle climb to be continuous and was worried it was the gasket mod. Did a little more Yotatech reading and decided to go over every vacuum connection again. One vacuum line had three small splinters in it, but was well above of the plastic nipple on the baffle so I assumed it was fine. I went ahead and clamped below the cracks anyway and decided to fire up the vehicle again. This time I got a cold start at 1000 rpm and stayed consistent for about 5 minutes. I drove the Runner about a mile down the road and and parked again and it stayed at 1000. That was yesterday. Today I wanted to drive down the road a ways to let everything settle in and really get a feel for any difference. Okay, startup was again 1000rpm. This time after getting to operating temp it stayed at 650. This is an improvement from 1700 at startup and 800 at operating temp. The throttle response is amazing and there is a definite increase in horsepower. I obviously haven't measured yet, but there is a very noticeable increase. Additionally, while driving rpm's are way down and engine sounds fantastic while not working nearly as hard. No downshifting climbing the ridge up to my house. Just a smooth throttle response and even tone. That reminds me. Modifying the throttle body gasket gives the motor a nice full sound. It's throaty and strong, but not obnoxious. There may be things I'm missing, but wanted to share the results so far. I really will get some pics up. Hopefully this evening. I need to start a photobucket account tonight. Hope everyone is enjoying their Thansgiving.