Well the 3.4 shit itself. 100% my fault, the radiator cracked because I hit the perfect height rock. I don't have a front skid since after I destroyed my last two I didn't have time to make another one (or buy) over the summer, plus the OEM mounts had been literally ripped off. One of the hazards of snow wheeling is not seeing big rocks... Long story short is both heads are warped.
Long story is I went up to a local trailhead, my girlfriend and I had been debating going wheeling in the snow but I had seen that some local car guys had wanted to try to go up to this trailhead so figured we could convoy up if they needed help. At the top a Subaru WRX with us got super stuck, not surprising at all. I was impressed with how it was doing, but once the snow became powdery and not packed down it couldn't do anything to save it. The best bet was for me to drive around it and pull it forward since we were almost at the parking lot, and there we would turn it around.
Scouting out the parking lot:
We pull it up there, then begin this tedious operation of turning it around. The WRX had this shitty little tow hook thing that would thread in behind the bumper, and was just a little eyelet. I was nervous pulling it at too sharp of an angle because I figured it would bend over to the side or just plain rip/shear off and hurt the Subaru. So we spent probably an hour pulling it forward and back at the sharpest feasible angle to turn it around. During one of these turn arounds I drove onto what I thought was a dirt berm in the center of the parking lot, turned out it was a rock completely covered in snow. Apparently it was the perfect height to nail the radiator too.
So my first mistake was not having a skid in the front. My second mistake was not checking the radiator when I hit this rock. I've hit things in the front before, and it felt like the bumper had just hit it so didn't think more than a second that it was worth checking. Fast forward probably 20 minutes and I've been helping recover the Subaru, we have it turned around and about to head back down the trail. I get in the runner and notice the heater is off so turn it on, and my girlfriend says that it had stopped blowing heat so she had turned the fan off. I instantly knew the radiator had been busted and leaked all the coolant out, thus the heater core wasn't full of coolant and was blowing cold air now.
I turned the truck off, the temp gauge was rising, but not red yet. I figured it was too late already, I have NEVER seen the temperature gauge move and the fact the engine was so hot that the temp sensor was heating up despite no coolant flowing past it was a sure sign the engine was way too hot. Luckily this little WRX was now unstuck and back on the ruts of the road. We hooked up my snatch strap and he ended up towing us all the way home. An amazing feature of the later 3rd gens is an electronic brake booster, which never gets due credit. I had always wondered, and now it was confirmed, but if your engine dies the brake booster still works 100% which is nice. On the flip side, my battery is now stone cold dead. By the time we got home, you could hear (what I assume was) the brake booster still attempting to boost the brake system--the battery was so dead though that my hazards wouldn't even flash. When we pulled into our apartment parking lot I still had brake pressure though! Really really nice I have to say, especially considering we drove down a canyon and lost 3500ft of elevation, and having to brake without boost would of been annoying to say the least.
On the flip side, my hazards weren't working and your typical Utah driver is a complete moron. I have literally NO lights externally on the truck, my girlfriend and I have this little LED flashlight we're attempting to use. At one four way stop (which I think the Subaru should of just ran since no one was at it), the Subaru stops, then starts going, and this old woman in this little Buick or something pulls up to the stop sign and barely stops and then takes off. For perspective, we are turning left, she enters the stop sign from our right, and she is turning left. So we have a snatch strap hooked to me, the subaru goes, then this woman goes and doesn't notice in any way the subaru has hazards on, I have no lights, and there is a 3" wide strap connecting us. I'm sitting there like holy shit, hitting the horn which of course isn't working either because of the dead battery. The woman seems to notice at the last instant something is up, so she slows down, and then KEEPS GOING. The snatch strap is right in front of her, bright orange ARB strap. It catches on the lip of her hood and starts to slide under her hood. One of the guys in the WRX has jumped out now and is running over yelling to stop, which FINALLY she does. She then jams it in reverse and backs up, and some part of her hood or latch, I have no idea, pops out as the snatch strap which is tensioned is pulled out from under her hood.
The guy gets her to stop randomly driving everywhere, and the Subaru pulls us through this intersection that this idiot driver and I are hogging. The guy talks to her after she pulls over, and I have no idea what they say but eventually she takes off. Moral of the story is, if you think something is up, be cautious and try to think. Granted it was night time, but everyone could clearly see the snatch strap in this intersection and obviously something is up if a car has their hazards on. And the fact the woman slowed down, and then proceeded to keep going like she thought she could dart around me seems excessively stupid.
Anyways! Checked the engine compression the next day, compression was:
Passenger bank:
1 - 145psi
3 - 130psi
5 - 90psi
Drivers bank:
2 - 110psi
4 - 60psi
6 - 90psi
Apparently the FSM calls for at most 15psi difference between cylinders, and regardless it's pretty obvious that there's enough various that both banks are blown.
I've now been debating what to do. I've wanted to do an engine swap for awhile, and this seems like the opportune moment EXCEPT I live in an apartment and only going home for a week for winter break. I have three main options:
Fix the 3.4 - no upgrading the guts, only doing the bare minimum of replacing the head gaskets and surfacing the heads
Swap a 3.4 - Take it to a friends house and swap engines
Swap a V8 - Take it to a friends house and do what I actually want, but who knows how long that'll last
I keep leaning one way then another, I think what will happen is I'll just tear the heads down in the parking lot and get them surfaced and put the top end back together. Probably next summer I'll end up swapping an engine, I know everyone is die hard Toyota but it'd probably be a Chevy engine since I can upgrade it whenever I want, it's cheap, relatively simple swap, will fit easily in the engine bay, etc. Really the only thing better about a Toyota engine is the Toyota stamping. Regardless, I don't have the resources to swap an engine without a lot of hassle, so doing the minimum parking lot fix will probably be what happens. I have no idea what the bottom end is like, so I can just assume the heads being blown is why the compression is low, then put it back together and hopefully have higher compression. This engine has been beat to death, so I think this is the calling card for an engine swap come summer time.
To make the decision harder, there is a LS400 Lexus online for $800 that runs and drives. 1UZ V8, the engine with bell housing will bolt up directly to my A340F. I really want to get this, but I think that will be biting off more than I can chew. Like I said I would rather get a more modular platform like a Chevy anyways, and doing a V8 swap will probably turn out like the LT where it's a 3 month endeavor because I don't have the right tools or the money to buy those tools.
Additionally, I've researched and found that the radiator on manuals (or at least 2WD Manual according to one forum) is 4" shorter than what I'm guessing the one I have is. There were three OEM radiators, 22", 20", and 18" roughly. Either way I have one of the taller ones. Since I have an external tranny cooler I'll order the shorter radiator and I won't lose any cooling capacity, and the radiator should be tucked under the frame then. And of course over the summer I'll get a new front skid too.
That was a lot of writing, if anyone actually happened to read through it and wants to share their opinion of what to do about my engine I'm all ears. I have finals next week, so the engine won't be torn apart (assuming I go that route) for a little bit at least.
