Need a new engine. What route should I take?

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yotatake2

New member
Hey guys, so this weekend, after over a month of trying to chase down a random misfire problem, my head gasket finally gave up the ghost. So I now have a decision to make. I plan on keeping this truck for as long as humanly possible so I don't want to just replace the gaskets and call it a day. The truck is no longer my daily so I want to take my time and truly revive the engine. I'm debating between 3 options:

pull my motor and take it to a shop to get it fully rebuilt.
pros: one of the cheaper options
cons: I don't know how reliable this option is. Can anyone comment on this?

pull my motor and replace with junk yard/used motor
pros: probably the cheapest option
cons: never certain of how well it was taken care of in the past

pull my motor and replace with Toyota re-manufactured motor
pros: probably the most reliable option
cons: most expensive

I want to eventually install a TRD SC so I'd like for the engine to be as "new" as possible to avoid any significant loss of life expectancy.

As of now, I'm leaning towards just getting my engine fully rebuilt. I just want to make sure that it will be almost as reliable as a new engine. It currently has 250,000 miles on it and has overheated once in the past. Is it worth trying to revive it?

Thanks guys.
 
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This is such a hard decision. I decided to have my top & bottom end rebuilt. I knew the block was well taken care of because I'm the original owner. It has 13,000 miles on it & no problems. It seems to be done right. I'm bored out .30 over with headers, high flow cat & exhaust. I can easily chirp the tires slapping it into 1st. I plan on S/C'ing & hope it holds together. If I blow it up I'm getting a Stage 2 3RZ motor from LCE.
A used motor is a crap shoot but these are well built & should be fine if it was taken care of.

I think for your needs the reman from Toyota would be the best best. How much do they cost? I assume you have a 5VZ.
 
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Scramble said:
This is such a hard decision. I decided to have my top & bottom end rebuilt. I knew the block was well taken care of because I'm the original owner. It has 13,000 miles on it & no problems. It seems to be done right. I'm bored out .30 over with headers, high flow cat & exhaust. I can easily chirp the tires slapping it into 1st. I plan on S/C'ing & hope it holds together. If I blow it up I'm getting a Stage 2 3RZ motor from LCE.
A used motor is a crap shoot but these are well built & should be fine if it was taken care of.

I think for your needs the reman from Toyota would be the best best. How much do they cost? I assume you have a 5VZ.
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Yah, I have the 5VZ. I don't know exactly how much it would run me. I'm assuming close to 4 or 5K. But I have a friend who is a technical adviser working in the Torrence HQ. Maybe he can get me an employee discount. I really like the idea of a Toyota reman but I'll have to see if I can justify the cost over a good quality rebuild job on my engine.
 
Just went through this myself. I have a '96 4Runner Limited that I got when it was about 10 years old and only had 50k miles on it.. Just recently started taking it off road, and my new rock sliders had just arrived in the mail when the engine blew. Cracked head.. :( The truck is 20 years old now, and just rolled over to 200k miles..

I was really torn as to what to do. I've heard horror stories about junkyard motors, and motors from companies that do a cheap rebuild job on them. I'm getting better at working on my truck, but I didn't feel up to the task of doing a motor swap right yet.. Since I was going to have to pay for someone to do the swap, I REALLY didn't want to shell out a bunch of money on labor only to have a junkyard motor or whatever die on me again, and then have to swap it again.

In the end I decided to do a remanufactured motor from Jasper. I've taken really good care of my truck since I've had it, and I've recently put a fresh coat of paint on it, and the seats were all redone a few years ago.

For everything I ended up spending about 8k.. That was for a long block from Jasper, which comes with a 3 year 100k warranty. While we were at it I had them drop in a new radiator (I don't want the dreaded milkshake!), and I added in a remote transmission filter, and also had them use Evan's Waterless coolant when they put her back together.. (I've also added a oil pressure gauge and tranny temp gauge in a LoTek gauge pod)

It was a lot of cash.. It was supposed to be closer to 7k, but we didn't realize that the long block didn't come with an oil cooler, and Jasper requires that you put a new oil cooler on for them to warranty the engine..

I think if I had the talent to swap the engine myself, I probably would have tried a junkyard block. Of course if I had the talent to swap the engine myself, I might be tempted to just rebuild it myself.. :)

Again, it was a lot of cash, but I'm hoping I made a good choice with the Jasper motor and that'll I'll get at least another 200k out of this rig, if not 250 or 300..
 
If it were mine, I would do a JDM. I see them all day here for $900 for long blocks (probably require swapping of some parts).
 
DeadFlanders said:
Just went through this myself. I have a '96 4Runner Limited that I got when it was about 10 years old and only had 50k miles on it.. Just recently started taking it off road, and my new rock sliders had just arrived in the mail when the engine blew. Cracked head..
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I had a similar scenario on my rig. Cracked head at 208k. I bought a junkyard head for $200 and had it replaced. I realize I'm taking a bit of a risk with the bottom end but compression and the cylinders looked just fine. An even cheaper option then a whole junkyard motor, especially if you've been taking good care of the motor with regular maintenance.
 
Clayton74 said:
I had a similar scenario on my rig. Cracked head at 208k. I bought a junkyard head for $200 and had it replaced. I realize I'm taking a bit of a risk with the bottom end but compression and the cylinders looked just fine. An even cheaper option then a whole junkyard motor, especially if you've been taking good care of the motor with regular maintenance.
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Yeah, initially I was hoping to just replace the head, or heads and call it good.

Part of the reason that I went the full route was that I was already burning a half a quart of oil every 5k miles. We think part of it was my rear main seal leaking, but we were pretty sure it was burning oil as well. The other thing was that I was up for my 200k service, and that alone was probably going to be about $1500, if not more.

Again, I think if I felt confident enough to do some of that myself, I would have gone a different route.. But when you're paying a mechanic to do the work, I would have already been into it thousands just for the new heads, the machining, 200k mile service and all of that. AND I would still have a lower end with over 200k..

But if I could swap the heads myself? Hell ya! Then you're only out the cost of the heads. If the rest of it goes later, you're not really out anything but your time, and if it holds up for another 100k or more?? Then even better!

My 2003 Tacoma is at about 200k as well.. I hope it goes for a whole lot more, but if it doesn't, maybe I'll be willing to do a little more work on it when/if the time comes..
 
Clayton74 said:
I had a similar scenario on my rig. Cracked head at 208k. I bought a junkyard head for $200 and had it replaced. I realize I'm taking a bit of a risk with the bottom end but compression and the cylinders looked just fine. An even cheaper option then a whole junkyard motor, especially if you've been taking good care of the motor with regular maintenance.
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Definitely minimal downtime here too. And the option to clean up a lot and replace gaskets/ seals while you're at it.
 
AntleredRuin said:
Definitely minimal downtime here too. And the option to clean up a lot and replace gaskets/ seals while you're at it.
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I'm not too worried about downtime since the truck is no longer my daily. I'm basically looking for the newest and most reliable bang for my buck. Let me put it this way. I want to settle on an option that will get at least another 200k out of the truck.
 
yotatake2 said:
I'm not too worried about downtime since the truck is no longer my daily. I'm basically looking for the newest and most reliable bang for my buck. Let me put it this way. I want to settle on an option that will get at least another 200k out of the truck.
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Given with what these motors are doing on a regular basis, a new / reman head is good for 200k with your internals as long as they look good. With any used motor you buy, you have no idea how the PO cared for it. With your motor, you know exactly how you've cared for it.

For me I was looking the most cost effective fix, but even if I wasn't I don't think I'd have gone any other route. Why throw out a perfectly good motor that just needs a new head?
 
Clayton74 said:
Given with what these motors are doing on a regular basis, a new / reman head is good for 200k with your internals as long as they look good. With any used motor you buy, you have no idea how the PO cared for it. With your motor, you know exactly how you've cared for it.

For me I was looking the most cost effective fix, but even if I wasn't I don't think I'd have gone any other route. Why throw out a perfectly good motor that just needs a new head?
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I see your point with the previous owners maintenance but on the other hand, I bought the truck with 180k on it. So that's all unknown history of the motor. If I were to do anything at all to my current motor I'm going to at least get it fully rebuilt, mainly for peace of mind. I guess my main question is If I get my motor fully rebuilt at a reputable shop, how close in reliability would it be to a Toyota factory remanned engine?
 
yotatake2 said:
I see your point with the previous owners maintenance but on the other hand, I bought the truck with 180k on it. So that's all unknown history of the motor. If I were to do anything at all to my current motor I'm going to at least get it fully rebuilt, mainly for peace of mind. I guess my main question is If I get my motor fully rebuilt at a reputable shop, how close in reliability would it be to a Toyota factory remanned engine?
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Owning an automotive shop myself, I can tell you that lots of shops will rebuild a motor but not many specialize in it. I would let my shop rebuild a motor for my rig but not a customers. Too much risk of something going wrong. If you're just going with a stock type of rebuild, I'd just buy a reman long block from a company that specializes in them. You want something from a shop that does nothing but rebuilds motors.
 
Honestly, if you're ok with spending $4-5k+ on a quality rebuild, I'd suggest looking into buying a whole new truck altogether.
Since this is not your DD, take your time and look real hard. You'll be able to find something for pretty close to that price, honestly, probably with less miles than you started with.
Then you can part yours out, or keep it as a personal parts vehicle, etc.

With these engine, it's very rare to get a rebuild that's worth the money. They were put together so carefully from factory that I'd trust a well maintained original high mileage over a rebuilt any day of the week. I always hear about the rebuilt engines starting to fail within about 2 years.
 
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I talked to a few other friends last night, one of whom is a Toyota technical adviser and the general consensus seems to be to rebuild my motor at a dedicated shop that specializes in Toyota motors and possibly add in some upgrade parts from LCE to make it bullet-proof and ready to boost in the near future. Any recommendations on what to upgrade?
 
Hello,

My advice is never go with junk yard engines.
Rebuilt is quite tricky as you cannot tell how and what level of quality the parts used are. Unless trusted supplier.

Rebuild it and buy the OEM parts yourself if possible.

Otherwise by brand new engine from these guys:
Toyota New Engines

Yes there is no brand new in their website but give them a call. (to update website it a sort of a process with the website editor) so they may have but didn't listed it. (OR they may advice you from where to buy)

I will always recommend to rebuild it yourself (or under your supervision) save money and you know what you are having.
 
I'm in the middle of doing a complete rebuild. In hind site, I would have purchased a complete rebuilt long block with a warranty from Yotashop ($3.3k).

The used engine I bought ended up having compression issues, had to do a complete tear down, now between Toyota gaskets, parts and time, it would have been a better decision to have someone else do the quality work.

I don't want another vehicle, I know almost every nut and bolt on my 4runner. Fiscally (short term) not a smart decision, but in the long run worth every penny as I don't have to make a monthly payment.

3.4L Toyota 5VZFE Dressed Long Block - 5VZFE 34L-DB-9504 - YOTASHOP
 
I love the way that no one on here is afraid to buy a high milage 4runner but is petrified to buy a used motor. Find a good used one with good compression.Pull it out of a totaled 4runner that way you know it was running and you can check the vehicles maintenance history just like when buying a used vehicle. Put it in yourself, do the usual timing belt/seals/gaskets. Take all that money you would have spent buying a rebuilt one and go buy a brand new supercharger.
 
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