I bought an 89 4runner and it is running awesome has lots of power and doesnt hesitate or nothing but the fumes are very bad, smells very very rich. it does not smoke at all and there are no other problems. It does have a pretty nice valve cover gasket leak, could that cause it?? the converter was already cut off prior to me buying it and it has all new plugs and wires and such. No engine light either.

 

I forgot to mention it has the 3.0 v6

 

i just replaced mine but have yet to test it out. I did find that the old damper was discolored from gas and the pin/screw in the bulb had fallen out (leaving a hole in the damper) and was rattling around inside the plastic shroud. Probably could have screwed it back in but replaced since it was a pita to get to.

Unfortunately you have to take off the plenum to get to the damper. It's on the end of the passenger side fuel rail.

 

The lack of the convertor will definetly make the exhaust smell more rich. If it is running too rich your plugs will have alot of carbon build-up(black fluff). If it's running way too rich the O2 sensor should catch that and then you'll get a code.

About that oil leak, welcome to the club. It's a 3VZE thing, mines had a constant leak since I've owned it(4+ years). New valve cover gaskets will make it go away for awhile(a few months at best). But it's so much trouble replacing them I've just learned to live with it. It surely wouldn't cause you to be running rich(though I'm curious where you might have got that idea).