Nice moto man
Good looking build. Awesome part prep. It's almost a shame to build these so pretty, since i can't see shit on mine now that it's installed. (btw I was looking at a 95 Tacoma(?) with a 3.4 the other day, and was amazed by how much room there was, almost enough to climb in and pull the hood closed to work on it! in comparison to this 4runner which I can barely fit a fist in anywhere under hood now that it's done.
Hey, what happened to the yellow chrome for instance on the waterpipe?
Where and how did you get your metal cleaning accomplished?
Looks like you Polish those things somewhat?
I'm going to be a Cali soon, very North of you, but not impossible to try a head to head, although I got nice sluggy 4.88 gears.
I just finished a '95 3.0 , bored first over / balanced, 004 off the decks,
I think I got the meh Pistons from panengine (SCREW THOSE LOUTS avoid avoid avoid more on that later),
New casting heads from Odessa circa a couple years ago, not overjoyed with the valves they put in , but cams looked freshened, and I regapped the valves somewhat conservatively, Center spec or looser.
extremely mild porting (mostly taking out mold-parting cast lines); it didn't look worth going much further due to the insanely long & convoluted upper intakeS which is probably the limiting factor in this engine.
Did you happen to check flow on the manifold? You have to be careful when placing the lower intake manifold in the valley, because it's fairly easy to shift it a few 010" which may put break/discontinuity (" finger nail" obstruction) on the induction path, at the head/ intake parting line, which may kill flow.
Felpro latest head gaskets were good enough for me; you are right, surface finish is according to gasket type, some do better with smooth finishes to accommodate some movement, other types do better with a good hard bite from higher Ra R_\text{a}... Most decent gaskets will come with a recommendation
I did a fairly aggressive first 30~50 mile break-in then a quick oil change; I like the idea that high cylinder pressures help seat rings better, so I got up to 4 ~ 4.5K rpm runs (using lower gears to keep the RPMs up without becoming popo bait on the speed) & even some hill hauls , after just a few preliminary lower RPM runs, using non-ethanol.
Knock wood, no drips or funny noises a couple days into it.
