87 build not sure wat to throw money at.

[xxdobbsxx]

i bought the truck and it is pretty good on the body but the motor has 300,000+ miles on it. i want to use it as a vehicle im going to drive across country and go through mild trails in mountains and desert. summer 2017 i am going to explore the west in this truck for 3 months straight so i need it reliable. i currently put two coats of AL'S heat and noise reducer and have one coat of monstaliner in the interior. i also plan on monstalinering the outside. it has IFS and i would like more travel, but im not sure if i should put a lift on it. it does need new suspension im pretty sure it is original from 87. i was looking at doing the OME 2" kit, but after some research m not sure if a lift kit is needed. i know i want a locker and was thinking about getting a elocker from a newer 4runner. the engine i was going to buy the performance remanufactured one off ebay Toyota 22RE Engine High Performance 135HP 173FTLBS | eBay

is there anything else i should look into or shouldnt look into. this is going to be my first build ever and plan on keeping the truck forever

 

[txclimber]

For about half the cost of that engine you could rebuild yours with a new high performance head and add custom exhaust headers. The labor is essentially the same with swapping engines or rebuilding yours. The end result will be superior.

The only added work is removing the pistons and crank, a trip to the machine shop, re-install crank, and add new pistons. These chores are trivial.

 

[KidVermicious]

buy the performance remanufactured one off ebay Toyota 22RE Engine High Performance 135HP 173FTLBS | eBay

That's PMC Machne, AKA CHS Machine, AAKA Raptor Engines, AAAKA fifty other companies, and the guy's a crook. Check out the BBB page on CHS Machine, and then google their phone number and see how many other "performance rebuilders" pop up in the Portland area using the same phone number and the same reworked website.

If you want to pay somebody else to build a quality "performance" 22RE, you're going to pay a lot more than $1500. Check out 22reperformance.com or LCE for examples. Not worth it, IMO - I'm with txclimber, rebuild it yourself. $600 or so including the rebuild kit and machine work on the head and block will get you a brand new motor, and you'll learn it inside and out in the process. If you have to have little more grunt, throw on an engnbldr Street head and a good cam, bolt up a long tube header, and call it a day. That would run you about $1000-$1200 and you'd make pretty close to 130-140 HP anyway.

 

[xxdobbsxx]

Do you recommend a certain rebuild kit? Also what is a good can? I would have to have a shop redo the cylinders though correct.

 

[KidVermicious]

Get your rebuild kit from engnbldr.com. He'll sell you a cam too, I like the 261 but tell him how you're going to use the truck and he'll recommend what'll work best for you.

You can have the machine shop do the bare minimum or almost everything, it's up to you and your wallet. If it were me, I'd have the machine shop test and rebuild the head, tank the block, make sure the mating surface is flat, check the cylinders for round and bore them out if necessary, and check out the crank. Then the shop would tell me what size pistons and rings to order and what size main and engine bearings I need. Then I'd go to engnbldr with those numbers to order my rebuild kit, and I'd put the motor together myself. If you're nervous about installing pistons and things like that, I'm sure your machine shop would be happy to do as much of the assembly as you want to pay them to do but they might want to use their own parts instead of engnbldr's rebuild kit, so ask about that first. engnbldr uses mostly DNJ parts, that's probably what most other shops will use but they might not get them as cheap. Or maybe they will. Ask them and find out. One nice thing about getting your rebuild parts from the shop that does the block work is you know who to blame if something is the wrong size . The downside is they might cost a little more than getting them from engnbldr.