Howdy bros, I have a few questions about engines. My 22re has a bit over 300k on it now and as far as I could tell it’s never been opened short of timing cover until this past weekend. Blew my head gasket a couple blocks from home on Friday. At least that’s when I noticed the truck running funny at idle, missing hard but would be fine under throttle. Spent the weekend pulling it apart and slapping in a new head gasket. Didn’t take anything to get machined cause it never got hot.

anyway having that happen kinda broke the rose colored glasses off my face and made me realize this motor isn’t going to last forever. Bottom end sounds totally fine. No taps or knocks at all. I decided to get on the list for an LCE street motor, their mildest build. Anyone run these motors? I’m hoping it will have the reliability of a true 22re but I can’t seem to find legitimate reviews about gas mileage, longevity or anything about them online. The guy at LCE said they’re as good as or better than an oem motor and the block, crank, and head are all new castings, no remanufactured parts at all. My plan is to get the LCE and rebuild my motor slowly over time using parts from 22REperformance.

I’d go with 22REPerformance for a motor over LCE but I don’t have a spare for a core to send to them and their books are closed for rebuilds.

anyway who’s got experience with the LCE complete long blocks? Am I going to get my moneys worth? Is the bottom end going to nuke itself in the middle of a long road trip? The whole idea with going with LCE is reliability and confidence I’m not going to get stuck in the middle of a long off road trip. The only problem I have nothing to prove reliability or confidence because I can’t find any reviews of their complete motors that aren’t race applications. My yota is a daily driver and I’d like to continue having a reliable rig that gets 19+ mpg.

thanks to anyone who has some input.

 

This doesn't answer your specific question, but is the option i took.
I bought a genuine Toyota short block assembly from the dealer and assembled with my head. The assembly comes with pistons and crankshaft already installed.
The factory short block will probably be about the same cost as an assembled long block from a rebuilder. The obvious drawback is you'll have your vehicle down while you swap parts, but if you line up what parts you know you'll need in advance you can minimize this.

One reason to give this consideration is that way you know what's in your engine as far parts go. I don't think anyone makes a better head or camshaft than Toyota, and with the reman engines i researched it was vague on who supplied these key parts. The vast majority of aftermarket heads and cams are from China, and I've found the quality debatable. If you know your oem head and cam are in good condition it'd be a shame to lose them as a core exchange.

 

I had no idea I could still get a complete short block from Toyota, I’d WAY rather that and put on a head from 22re performance or even LCE. my head is in decent condition, cam looks fine, my adjuster screws and rockers have seen better days but I wouldn’t consider them bad. I definitely won’t be giving up my upper or lower end as a core, I’m keeping and rebuilding every part I can once I get a new motor. That was a nice part about LCE is there is no core exchange.

im going to call my local Toyota and see about ordering a short block

 

I think the part number I ordered was 11400-35050, but have that checked for your vehicle. IIRC the multiple 22R block part numbers all got superseded to one.
I'd recommend jumping on the internet and find your best price, including shipping, and tax if applied.
Then go to your dealer and ask them to match.
Dealers will whore themselves on the internet because they can sell to a customer that otherwise will never walk up to their counter. But they'll add significant mark up to their local customer.

 

thank you. I’m looking up that number and it comes back as an 83 discontinued model and a 2.7 which is strange. I found the number for my assembly 11400-35053 and some sites list it for sale and others say it’s discontinued. Some even show it coming back as a 3.0 v6

 

Just called Toyota, all the part numbers they have for short blocks have been discontinued. Bummer.

so I guess back to the original question, how many of you guys have run an LCE or other crate motor with good results?

 

Shoot, didn't seem like I ordered THAT long ago, but things change. I'll do some research.
Just curious, when you did the headgasket how did the piston walls look? Was the cross-hatching still there?
The fact that LCE doesn't want cores is troubling to me.

edit:
I called McGeorge. The part number I ordered was 11400-35043, and it too show's disc

 

LCE says they’re casting blocks themselves (prob outsourced) so no need for a core.

I didn’t rotate the motor off tdc when I did it cause I didn’t wanna have to mess with the timing chain. It was a quick job for me to get it running. I checked the cylinder after with a borescope and walls looked fine. In cyl 2 and 3 they looked fine as well, not great cross hatching but definitely no streaking. the pistons have a decent bit of carbon build up as well as the centers of the valves. Not surprised for a 300k mile motor that’s 100% stock. Well not number 1 anymore lol.

I found a motor for $1500 at a local junk yard they’re claiming to be all oem with 120k miles. I might go that route, swap it in if the cylinders look good and do a rebuild on the motor I am currently driving.

 

New question for yotatech but don’t want to start a new thread, what’s a solid way to ID an oem Toyota short block/head? Local junkyard has a 22re out of a 2wd I might grab to rebuild, but I’d like a way to verify it hasn’t been opened up or rebuilt with remanned parts in the past. Any way to do it without completely tearing it down?

 

I doubt you'd run into a non-oem block. Bored out maybe, but not aftermarket.
Head and cam are the risk. The cheap Chinese cast heads and cams were so cheap that to many it seemed better to buy than machining their oem head. I've pulled parts off a few wrecked 4Runners where the head was very noticeably cleaner than anything else under the hood.

I can't find any great way to readily distinguish the two different heads. At least not by looking strictly at the head. What might be useful is i saw where the valve spring retainer that sits on top of the valve spring was noticeably thicker on the Chinese head vs. oem. Valve lip was a lot thicker, too, but on that you'd have to pop one out to tell. Valve spring on the Chinese head was a lot stiffer, too, but again, hard to tell on the fly.

I think I saw where someone (LCE?) posted that the measurement from the bottom of the 1/2 moon cam journal to the head surface was 3.13". Wouldn't tell you oem vs aftermarket, but would tell you if head has been decked before.

 

thanks for the tips. The guy sent me some pics, looks decentlyl taken care of and evenly clean from valve cover to oil pan.weird that it has a 22r valve cover sticker when I don’t think those covers ever came on the carb versions?



has aisin cover and pump, honestly has less oil residue than my engine. Even appears to have a 4wd oil pan. Gonna turn the crank by hand and look in the spark plug holes, if it looks good I’m gonna buy it instead of the LCE.

 

I'm curious what the going rate is for a junkyard 22re.

 

$2000 for that as it sits. So less than half the cost of an LCE and it doesn’t have a China block and crank.

im gonna crack it open and see how it looks then decide to send this or the motor I have to get rebuilt first.

 

The valve cover on my carb'd 22r has the 22R sticker.

The guy I bought my truck from 12 years ago told me he'd put a new head on it. I bought a valve cover gasket set some years after buying it. The kit half moon inserts didn't fit. Can't remember if too big or too small. I also ordered the aluminum half moon inserts from 22RE Performance. Those didn't fit either. I figured the head the PO put on it had to be aftermarket which is why the inserts were not fitting.

There's someone in my area selling rebuilt 22Rs. Check out facebook marketplace for Raleigh NC. There are several postings for rebuilds. I think the same people. One post they're rebuilding with 22R block and 20R head, $1350. Another is a performance build using Erson Cams, Safety Pistons, and Safety Timing components for $2500. Third posting shows stock reman for $1075.

I'm pushing 312K miles on mine. She's my DD. Hoping for a few more miles before a rebuild.

 

I’m pretty sure it’s a 22re head/cam and that sticker is just aftermarket. The casting marks look pretty similar to what I’ve got. Plus it’s got an erg temp sensor so it’s probably 1993 or newer, wouldn’t expect that to possibly have a 22r head on it.

im out in so cal,, not looking to ship a motor across the country. I’m gonna go grab this junkyard motor tomorrow.

mines for 305+ a year without a Speedo cable so the milage wasn’t recorded. So id guess around 325-350k. Bottom end still appears to be decent, the cylinders look okay for the milage, could used a cleaning pass to clean up the walls but nothing major. No taps or knocks other than some chain rattle.

 

They left a lot bolted on. Motor mounts, manifolds with sensors, mounting brackets, etc. You could eBay whatever you can't use and recover some of your costs.
That is a clean engine. Maybe the yard pressure washed it, but that's be a first.
If you don't buy an overhaul kit, but buy individual components, you can get many of the crucial parts, like pistons and bearing, from the same companies Toyota uses as suppliers.

 

yeah plan is to sell the manifolds and keep the sensors/vsv if they’re the same as what my 1990 has. Those are getting hard to find/expensive these days.

I think they did pressure wash it cause the exhaust looks shiny in those photos.

I plan to buy the 22rePerformance complete rebuild kit and maybe one of their heads. If this motor looks good I’m gonna swap it in and rebuild my original engine. The pistons appear to be original on my bottom end (have the numbers stamped on the tops like I’ve seen before) but I feel like I’m on borrowed time with it because of my quick and dirty head gasket replacement (reused original old head bolts). It actually runs better than it ever has right now. It may have had a slight hg leak for the last 100k miles because it’s never idled as smooth as it does now. I just know the bottom end is probably sleepy after drinking some coolant and I know my timing chain is getting loose or my tensioner is tired. Plus the upper portion of my intake side chain guide is broken.

 

I went and checked out that motor, photos looked great, was a hunk of sh** in person. Blown head gasket, and the head/cam looked cobbled together.

 

I was going to say, I bet that engine had been opened up before.

I think the valve cover was off of another engine, or the engine was converted from a 22R to a 22R-E.

 

something goofy was going on. It had a weird ring on the end of the cam I’ve never seen before, and the pistons were stamped .050 so it has definitely been opened before. Guy looked shocked/didn’t believe me when I told him the head gasket was blown when I was looking at cylinder #4 till I yanked the valve cover haha. He told me he’d have a new 22re for me tomorrow, I’ll see how that one looks. At this rate I’ll be installing the LCE