Well, if there's anyone I know on this board who has enough desire to rebuild that top end and go through the learning curve to do it -- it's you! You're one of the few I'd think could tackle this kind of project just because you've invested so much in learning about the 3VZE, as it is. One problem may be if it is your daily driver -- you may not be able to get everything done that you want to do in one weekend. Any chance you can rent/borrow another vehicle? If so, then I'd go for it.

Anyone else other than you, and you know I'd be telling them to just do the 3.4L swap!!!

Hope this works out for ya, bro.

Ed

 

I was very happy with the gasket kit and HG included that i got from enginbldr. Head bolts also.

dont forget to have your injectors cleaned/rebuilt. i recomend cruzinperformance. i sent him 3 sets and they all needed it!

youll also likely need a handfull of hoses that will refuse to come off the upper intake when you take it lose and end up just breaking in half they are so brittle. (least this was my case on 2 diffrent motors with that kinda life)

If you go headers go NWOR. much better product IHMO but others say the company sucks to deal with... (i had no problems) (i just got done putting downey on my 4runner and dont care for the design much)

if you do the work without pulling the motor out, take the front tires off and drop the truck down about 6". it will make wrenching on the motor SO much easyer (assuming your not like 6'7" or something)

 

Come on BY, I did the rebuild myself so I'm sure you'd be able to. Remeber my long old post with all of the pics. I made it through with the help of yourself and many other regulars on here. You can do!

 

Actually Im only about 6' tall so i could use it being about 4 to 5" lower. Injectors were already worked over by cruzinperformance about 35k miles ago when I reshimmed my valves. Crazily enough they were in awsome condition at 240k.

It looks like doing everything i want to performance wise short of headers will run me about 1k in parts (including the heads being rebuilt...) Assuming that the heads havent cracked and the block hasnt warped...ugg

 

1k sounds about right. I did mine for more but I also did everything at once (which I don't recommend). Do it yourself and post pics. I learned a lot when I did mine.

 

I seriously doubt your heads cracked, or your block is warped.

But I can tell you, that your heads are probably warped.

EB told me its pretty difficult to get these heads to crack, but with any aluminum heads any kind of heat or gasket failure will typically warp them.

 

If the heads are warped, can/will they be rebuildable? Or does that depend upon the severety of the warp?

 

they'll be just fine. Your talking thousands of an inch being taken off. Just enoug to make the head flat. Just take your heads off, take em down to a good machine shop and have them rebuilt, and put them back on.

Don't worry about it, just get er done!
Your making a rubicon trail, out of a gravel road

 

Exactly, no biggie. Now if you were to still be driving it and were making it worse every day then I'd say you could have a problem. Please tell me you aren't driving it till they are fixed.

 

Nope havent driven it anywhere. The last time I tried to crank it, it acted as though it had a dead battery. (about 5 min after shutdown from the white billowing smoke. and I have two ultra deep cycle sealed batteries capable of outputing well over 3000 cranking amps, so I think it just started to fill one of the cylinders with coolant.) Obviously the next time I crank it to move it to the proverbial surgury bed, Im going to have to pull all the plugs and let it clear itself first.

But no Im not driving it. Rather I am driving a 6.5L chevy turbo diesel, that periodically decides that it wants to run NA instead of building 8psig. (I need to tear oof it's vacuum accuated boost controler and just put on a spring loaded one.) However it is quite fun to cover all the vehicles behind me in a HUGE billowing, black, smoke cloud! Now to save money...uggg.

Hey should I worry about swapping the oil pump?

 

A lot of peeps will say that oil pumps last forever so it really depends on the milage of your engine and overall condition. If you aren't gonna pull the whole engine to do the gaskets then if it were me I'd leave it alone. Might wanna change the water pump though.

If you are still serious about the turbo thing then I would seriously consider working the heads a bit while they are off. Talk to Ted and see if he can get you some stainless OS valves and even if you can't get those do a nice valves job and a good port job. This will go a long way towards making that engine more receptive to the turbo and some have said they got a solid 30hp with just that.

 

Welcome to the club, I opted for a rebuilt from orient engine mself when mine went a few months ago.

 

if the thing ran fine before the headgaskets, just replace the gaskets, and possibly the timingbelt, and waterpump. Everything else I wouldn't worry about. If it ran fine before, just replace the gaskets and it'll run fine after.

 

The ney toyota HGs are steel core.

 

He only sells those 2 HGs as far as I know. The Rock is standard in his kits IIRC. Send him an email, Ted it just an amazing guy.

 

He IS cool!! I talked to him and he said he had only one type of standard steel gasket for the 3vze... In either event i am VERY impressed with them! Now I just have to save up... Either that or open a credit card up...ugg.

 

Open up the credit card and Git-R-Done!

 

hahahaa credit card + me = bad for me but rising profits for sears and harbour freight!

I do have some tools coming that I need in exchange for the kick panels im building.

HEY who wants kickpanels? I need to pay for my rebuild! lol