n8hunt23

Just trying to get some ideas here.

Background:

About a year and a half ago I tore my engine (22re) down for a new timing chain, while I was at it I installed a new street rv head with oversize valves and 268 cam from engnbldr.

All the cylinders still had factory crosshatching and the engine had about 140,000 miles but one cylinder was burning a little oil so I had the cylinders honed and installed new rings and bearings.

After this the engine never ran quite right. It would consume oil at a rate of about a quart every 1,000-1,500 miles(but it didn't smoke noticeably), had noticable less power than it did before when it was stock, had low compression in every cylinder (about 130psi) and ran a little rough. Over time it got worse, ran rougher and eventually quit idling. I would have to adjust the throttle stop to hold the butterfly open just to make it idle.

All the sensors check out fine and there where no vacuum leaks. Recently I did anouther compression test and cylinders 3 and 4 had ZERO compression.

I tore the engine apart today planning on rebuilding it again. When I got it apart I could find absolutely nothing wrong. The head gasket looks fine, there is no sign of burning oil in the combustion chambers (they are dry), no cracks in the head and no discoloration of the valves that would indicate that they are burnt and the cylinders look great. Everything is clean and looks perfect.

Does anyone have any idea what else could cause the symptoms I described or something I may have missed?

Symptom recap: Oil consumption, poor power, low compression in all cylinders, zero compression in cylinders 3 and 4, rough running, won't idle at

Sorry for the long post, I just want to find out what went wrong.

Thanks

toytech76

If you had it torn down that far you should have had it bored out. I would check the cylinders for being egg shaped

ozziesironmanoffroad

yeah, bore em out. not too much, just to get em perfectly round again. you dont want a paper thin cylinder, period. and with those racing parts, if you one or two racing parts, you gotta do ALL racing. ok, lets say you have to replace the cam, and decide to put a racing cam in. you'd have to put in a stronger spring for the cam, then bigger injectors, and so on... i know im not using the right terminology, hopefully someone here can help me out.

toytech76

Basically you want matched parts, an engine that will hold together with high performance parts

ozziesironmanoffroad

^^^ EXACTLY. Thanks ToyTech.

89whitetoyota

just a thought, did you make sure the gaps in the rings werent lined up when you installed them? That could cause a compression issue. When you put the rings into the piston grooves, did you make sure the gaps werent lined up, if so, compression might be leaking out.

just a thought.

zachb55

Zero compression couldnt come from leaking rings, even if they weren't there if you had oil you'd have something, im thinking a stuck valve on both of those, or your spark plug threading is thrashed, or a combination of a few things, 0 compression means something has to be very wrong, look back over every detail and make sure you didnt miss something. And definitely you have to match parts, at least all top end or bottom end, whichever you are replacing one part in.

n8hunt23

I wouldn't say I was using racing parts, just a brand new head and mild cam from engnbldr like many others use. Nothing special really.

The ring end gaps were not aligned. Spark plug threads are fine. I haven't pressure checked the head but the valves don't look burnt and I don't know why a brand new head from a respectable vendor would have leaking valves.

I seriously cannot find any thing wrong. Everything looks great inside. There are no signs of burning oil, head gasket is fine, head looks fine, cylinders look/feel fine.

I just did a head job on another truck I picked up for a couple hundred bucks to drive while I work on my other truck and the cylinders look trashed in comparison, a couple are oily and wet, but the truck runs like a top and doesn't use any niticable amount of oil. It just seems weird.

Flash319

Sounds very wierd. It sounds like a cam timing thing but I doubt it would run if the cam was out that bad. Your valve adjusters are not cranked down causing the valves to stay open?
There is an easy way to check where the compression is going. Make or buy an adapter to screw into the spark plug hole, then get that cylinder at TDC and pump in compressed air. You will hear where it is going.

isaac338

cylinders look fine - but how do they measure? looks are deceiving. measure for out of round and taper. honing an odd-shaped cylinder is going to give you a nice, clean, odd-shaped cylinder ;D

go to HF and buy yourself a big micrometer and some hole gauges. that'll give you a good start to check for out of round. the FSM will have measuring info, but i believe it's generally you measure at the top (below the ring ridge if it's there), midway, and bottom, both parallel and perpendicular to the wrist pin direction. the FSM will have taper and out-of-round allowances. also measure your pistons and then compare that to your cylinder measurements to check piston-to-cylinder clearance.

did your machine shop have pistons in hand when they worked on the block? i'm assuming a decent machine shop would have measured the pistons and checked clearance before going through with a hone job, but not if they didn't have pistons to work with.

edit: also, i'm assuming you've checked and rechecked valve clearances, and are competent using a feeler gauge (no offense)? how did you break the motor in after the hone job? did you torque the head bolts properly?

n8hunt23

The valve clearances were correct, and head bolts were torqued properly. I do agree that the cylinders could be out of round and tapered, I'll have to check that, but that wouldn't explain zero compression and if the rings aren't sealing I would typically expect the combustion chambers to be oily/wet from burning the oil.

For break in I ran the engine at 2500 rpm for about 15 minutes to break in the cam, then went and drove. I did some long pulls up hill at wide open throttle in the 2000-4500 rpm range in 3rd and 4th gear for about and hour. After that I drove normal. I used conventional 10-30wt oil and never switched to a synthetic.

slater442w30

I just did a 22r yesterday at my shop, had 0 compression in one cylinder, pulled it apart, everything looked pretty good, one valve was leaking on only one corner of it, maybe a quarter on an inch of valve wasnt closing and that caused 0 compression. Shined a light through one side and looked in the other and saw the problem, removed the valve from the head and found a valve giude had broken and lodged in the valve for a split second and caused the piston to ding the valve barely and caused the whole problem.. Put in a new guide and valve and good to go, runs like a champ, and to who said if all rings were lined up wrong it would still have compression? how do you figure? is a v8 different than a 4 cylinder piston? I have had a small block Olds with the rings installed wrong by a previous owner and it had 0 compression and burned oil, I put the rings back in right and it ran great so I am not buying into that one.

al65318

I am new to yotatech as of yesterday and new to the yota thing i got my first 1980 about 2 months ago . have not got to drive it yet. had a bad nock in the motor. i found all 4 thrush washers in the bottom of the oilpan. i would like to know how that happens.

89whitetoyota

I knew this to be the case on v8's too (283 CSB), and we had rings in one cyl all ligned up to where the gaps were at one end, and nothing. So, I just figured since a cylinder is a cylinder it could have the same result.

CamTom12

Did you degree the cam when you put it in?

eatmorechicken

some detailed pics might help?

YoterUp

i rebuilt my 22re and put a bigger cam in it and bored it .30 over regreted it so much i sold it for a new toyota it never ran the same it was done at a shop double and triple checked just couldnt explain it my personal opinion is go back to original cam keep everything as close to stock as possable motor wise maby add some bolt-ons if your looking for a little extra, headers cold air intake even with a bunch of money and alot of work your not going to get alot of power out of the motor without loosing alot of reliability. id take the block to a machine shop have them hone all cylinders the same double check it all for egg shaped cylinders scratches marks ect. check your crank for imperfections double check all valves and timeing then put it all back together as close to stock as possible and you will have a truck that will run 300,000miles. my 2 cents let me know how it works out and what you end up doing.