For some time now I've been misfiring at startup for 10-15 seconds after sitting overnight, but it quickly goes away and drives just fine after that. It also seemed to faintly smell like oil, pointing me to the valve stem seals. I ordered all of the parts and waited for a good time to do this project, since it's pretty involved (basically a timing belt job plus some).

I got in there and started, and it was going pretty well until one of the valve guides broke. This meant pulling the head to get it fixed, so I started on that. After fighting the exhaust manifold for a while, I got the head off.



Once it was off I made quite a few crazy discoveries.. cylinder 3 was filled with coolant! The whole cylinder was basically entirely full. Not surprisingly, it looked as if the head gasket itself was leaking.



Upon closer checking... a crack on the head!! As it seems to be most common for this engine, there was a tiny crack between the intake and exhaust ports on cylinder 3.



On top of that, I found a sticking exhaust valve. I wouldn't be surprised if there's one or more problems with the driver's side head but I haven't taken it off to find out.

At this point, I am going to simply replace the engine with a used 5VZ. I think I've found one in good shape (with <170k on it) that I will go check out later this week. My plan is to do the timing belt/WP, all the seals, valve covers, and plugs/wires while it's out and easy to do. We'll see what I'm able to find!

I had approximately 321k on this engine.