I am curious if someone could recommend a good gasket set for a complete rebuild of the 3.0 VZ-E?

 

Here is an Ishino Stone, Japanese made overhaul set at a good price:: 1995 Toyota 4Runner 4WD SR5 Engine Full Gasket Set | AutohausAZ

 

Rebuilt the top end of mine almost 10 years ago now using a felpro gasket kit from Bond Auto Parts (Now O rellys) No complaints.

 

I had to replace my 4Runner's head, maybe 20 years ago now, after a "friend" threw the water pump belt, and overheated it. Several times he overheated it, trying to get it back to my place. What really T'ed me off, was that I had the belt and tools IN the truck to replace the belt. Could have fixed it right where he was, and saved me a ton of time and money.

Anywho, I also used a set of Fel-Pro gaskets from Napa. The Fel-Pro head, and exhaust, gaskets are still in. The intake has been pulled a couple times, once to replace all the little water hoses under there. Still using Fel-Pro gaskets, and they SEEM to be working quite well for me.
Pat☺

 

JKris,

I did my 3.0 about 15K miles ago at 235K. Its been two years now since the HG let go on cylinder #1. I went with an MLS and ARP head gasket & stud kit from LC-Engineering. I had the block decked, bored and redid the bottom end and put in new pistons hung on resized conn rods. Cylinder #6 had the insulator fall off the spark plug which bitched up things fairly well and I had spun a bearing on one of the big ends. Three of the six pistons were frozen on the conn rod wrist pins which are semi-floating and get pressed into the conn rod to maintain centering. I hand lapped the heads and the block for the MLS and did a fair amount of massaging of the intake ports and runners in the plenum and heads as well as port matched everything. A K&N FIPK along with Doug Thorley headers and a custom made 2-1/2" exhaust have it making a top speed of almost 100 MPH in 4th gear these days.

If you get into the engine you will find cylinders #1 and #6 share identical head gasket geometry that surrounds the cylinder. They have two water/coolant galleries in the block that is closer to the cylinder than any of the others. That is were the FeldPro that I removed from the engine had failed on my 3.0. As it was the #1 cylinder the EGR took a bunch of coolant and transported a fair amount of it into the plenum. In hind sight I wish I had not waited 6 months to do the tare down after it had let go. Because the coolant did not do the inside of my throttle body any favors.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

I used a Fel-Pro gasket set and head bolts off of rockauto.com.

So far has lasted good for me, no leaks. Just make sure you prep the surfaces good for gaskets and get your heads machined. (Even if you didn't blow a HG better to be safe than sorry, could be 0.003 warped and cause future problems)

 

I used an MLS gasket on mine, but be warned that they only work if you have no warp on the head or block. MLS gaskets are advised to have head and block resurfaced before install. I only had my heads resurfaced and I have a small coolant leak. I hear Fel-Pro sucks now. Find a good composite head gasket. Here's some MAHLE gaskets from rock auto for $35 https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...1277940&jsn=19. You can check to see if the old head bolts are still good, but just get new ones.