LCE didn't know? Damn, you'd think that would be the one thing they did know. I'm aware of nothing aftermarket from Japan regarding 22R heads.
If someone has to replace the head, and going aftermarket is the only recourse, i recommend a bare head and transferring the cam and valves/springs/etc from the old head. There's been a noticeable number of cams failing from bad wear. LCE has a very detailed procedure on how to break in a camshaft, something that oem cams never needed to worry about. This would make me think the cams are initially soft metal, and need to be treated via running in hot oil for awhile. This also means constantly pulling your valve cover and inspecting for bad wear before metal particles are liberally dispersed throughout your entire engine. The valve springs that come with a loaded aftermarket head seem much stiffer than the oem spring, which would aggravate the soft cam during break-in. But that was just an observation i made on mine. I never measured the spring pressure.

 

Maybe somebody there did know but the guy I was talking to didn’t know, to be precise. He might have been more candid in saying it, who knows. What he was sure about was that it wasn’t from any country he could boast about it being from.
It was 9 years ago I did both motors but one got a OEM cam on it that had almost no wear. Less than a thousandth. Those were well made. The 94 crank had no detectable wear, they polished it. I retorqued both heads soon after breaking in.
Ive read so much about zinc preventing wear, on these old cams I’ve been using ZDDP with every oil change. I don’t drive over 70 unless I really need to. The quality of springs I can’t vouch for, never measured a spring pressure. Just hope they’re ok

 

Funny, Bitd the big concern with oil was too much zinc, especially around oil consumption.

 

Sorry, I posted this in the related thread below and bumped a 4 year old thread

You can also try Yodajims here in CO, they ship. Number is on the web, worth a shot.

 

The way I’ve heard it, the zinc and I think phosphorous or something, was needed to lube cams but in around 95 they found out it was damaging catalytic converters somehow so they took it out of all the oil and started using “ roller cams” which are cams with rollers on the rocker arms. So every engine pre- 95 about, needs zinc and other stuff added back into the oil, mainly for cams. That’s all I know about it.

 

It’s still useful for cams these days. Break in oils usually have high levels of it also. Roller cams it’s not as important but flat tappet cams it’s important in. You can run without it but it’s recommended to add it.

 

BTW Jimkola, you recommended buying a new head and building it rather than buying a Chinese head? I think that’s what you said? And putting the parts ( valves springs cam etc) on it? Where would you buy that bare head? I think they’re all in or around China.

 

The bare head will be from China. The companies that offer loaded heads typically will sell bare ones, too. I think Toyota still offers a bare 22RE head, but it won’t be cheap

 

Toyota discontinued them.