'90 Toyota 4Runner takes down a Cummins!!!

[Bumpin' Yota]

I still dont believe what happened....my truck is slow. Here's the run down.


My truck skip if you hate or could care less about gassers...lol

1990 Toyota 4Runner

3vz-e 3.0L v6
1mm oversized valves
Ported and Polished heads
262* duration camshafts (SOHC)
2.25" cat back
HiFlow Cat
"Turbo Muffler"
KN FIPK


And yes it has a niiiiiice lumpy idle that leaves just after you pass 1100rpm


And now the story!!

Having left work for lunch today, I decided I wanted some Taco Hell to further expidite my speedy trip to the grave with cholesterol!! I turn left onto clark road eastbound, and as I do, I notice what appears to be the remanants of diesel smoke wafting in a slight breeze. My pulse quickens! (I LOVE diesel smoke and go out of my way to actually drive through soot clouds!! ) I quickly scope out the vehicles off my yota's bow and instantly find the culprit: A HIGHLY lifted dodge crew cab short box. The clean-air-assulting rig was truely a bohemouth sporting tires somewhere in the 40+" range. To match the tires, it had dual 4" exhausts with 6" tips exiting on both sides behind the tires. I get directly behind the monster and mouth the words "SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!" and grin from ear to ear giggling like a school girl. The owner did not notice and accellerated away slowly only partially quenching my thirst for diesel soot.

A blue C5 Z06 to the left of the monster decides he wants space btwn him and it and takes his LS6 and gets out of "dodge" ( ). As the blue Z06 says bye-bye the black-cloud-generator in front of me nails it, instantly has boost, and starts accellerating. And again with very little soot, and to my surprise, with very little accelleration!! I floor it, catch up, pass on the right, then slow back down for the red light that the Z06 got through with its 405hp, but I and the Dodge didnt.

When the dodge pulls up, I gaze upwards and through the ~15% tint meet the sunglass clad eyes of a girl. I smile from ear to ear and mouth the word "COOL TRUCK!!"

Apparently this action somewhat egged on the driver, for as the cross street light turned yellow he started powerbraking, but not very hard. I would speculate only 1000rpm or so. I do the same but have to hold it at 1500rpm as any more and im pushing my locked front tires forward...lol When the light explodes green I floor it and MUCH to my surprise I immediately start pulling on the dodge. By the top of 1st (45mph) I have about 3 truck length and am thinking, "Sh!t he wasnt racing me!!" That thought was immediately stricken when I notice the cloud in my drivers side mirror! The Dodge was blowing the BIGGEST BLACKEST cloud I've EVER seen. By the time I hit 2nd his exhuasts stopped spewing black smoke, the engine's note changed, turbo screaming, and saw him suddenly hold my charge to 4 truck lengths on up to 60. In fact he might have been slooowly reeling me in. I hit 70 and shut it down. (And an extended cab chevy proceeded to kill us both, killing my by 1 truck length.) Dodge shuts down and hangs back. I give a sincere thumbs up out of my window and pull into taco hell to raise my LDL cholesterol level.

ps - oh and on the back of his tailgate read the words, "Cum on dis!" lol Definately a cool machine and I like it, but **** it why didnt he powerbrake?!

pss - he had an aftermarket rear diff cover so I assumed he'd have it regeared, but apparently not...

[owtcast]

I also have a 4runner. It's a 94 with the 3vze v-6 in it. It's a POS. It only has 60,000 miles on it and it's on it's third motor. Toyota didn't engineer the headgaskets on those things very well. When the gaskes give, it starts blowing out the metal on the deck of the block and or heads. After a while, it wears too much and you have to replace the block.

[Bumpin' Yota]

Yes the 3vz-e isnt the best engine but its not bad and most definately not a POS imo. Mine is on 281,000 miles and still counting despite minimal compression on #1. What were/are you doing to kill 3 of them??

The massive HG issue these engines suffered was from asbestoes being banned from HG use (biggest issue honestly), the restrictive crossover and exhaust manifolds generating lots of heat on #6 cylinder, and the idioticy of the HG recall to actually specify to reuse the TTY headbolts. Correct those 3 issues and it will run just as long as a 22re will imo.

[owtcast]

Well, Toyota picked up most of the bill for the first one.... and replaced it with the exact same stuff. I guess they thought that since it was getting old they wouldn't have any more worries. It went south again in 2 months. As for use, I bought it from my mom's estate when she died. It only had 32K on the clock even though it was 10 yrs old. It's been babied all it's life. I don't trust it to take out of town at all and I have way to much money in it to sell it now. So it just fetches the groceries in town now. I've had a few 22Rs and the FI versions. You almost can't kill 'em. But, I have no faith in this motor at all. Maybe if Toyota wouldn't of screwed me so bad on the second one I'd feel different. They offered me a set of "improved" head gaskets to cover their end of the second blown motor. They wont be getting any of my money anymore.

[Bumpin' Yota]

Well I thought it was a d**n good race, my hands were shaking afterwards....

[Tacomarunner]

First ? Why MOD a 3.slow??? Why not upgrade to a blown 3.4?
BTW nice kill

Russell

[Jeff_Northon]

I dumped our '93 and got the wife a 2004, V8 and 4.5 more miles per gallon. Third row seat, and lots of zoom available when needed. First head gasket was on the dealer, second was on me. This 4runner and the 1996 crewcab has us covered.

[Blue01F250]

Haha - I wish I had read that story before - that was quite entertaining! Good job!

[red97]

I had a 90 runner. It ran great until it got to 395,000. Then it got a little tired. The only thing I didn't like about it was turning the wrenches. But for a small six it was strong. The Dodge you smoked probably couldn't power brake.

[Bumpin' Yota]

Originally Posted by Tacomarunner

First ? Why MOD a 3.slow??? Why not upgrade to a blown 3.4?
BTW nice kill

Russell

Thanks for the congrads!

About modding the 3vze, that's easy!

1. A properly supercharged 3.4 is about 6-8k worth of $$ if not more. If I'm dumping that much into my drive train, it would have a 4BT in there or a 485+hp 383ci stroker in front of a 4L80e. (And Id take my 600lb sound system out of it. 7.2kW on bass alone.) And yeah Id be going "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" down bradenton motor speedway!

2. A N/A 3.4 is still going to run in the $3k for a donor truck if not more. And for what 30hp, 30tq, and even less RPM? Kinda a waste of money imo.

3. Because with the proper mods a 3vz-e will easily equal a NA 3.4, ala 5vz-fe. Heck the two blocks are pretty dang similar and both bottom ends are quite beefy. The main difference is the 5vz (3.4) has slightly wider pistons, 600 less rpm to redline, and is a DOHC. The heads are really where the 5vz gains over the 3vz, which are easily made up for by simply swapping in cams for the 3vze.

Originally Posted by Jeff_Northon

I dumped our '93 and got the wife a 2004, V8 and 4.5 more miles per gallon. Third row seat, and lots of zoom available when needed. First head gasket was on the dealer, second was on me. This 4runner and the 1996 crewcab has us covered.

Im getting 21 mpg on highway and 16 around town keeping my foot out of it and thats on a half dead #1 cylinder. The older the truck gets, the more you really have to keep em tuned up for mileage. I like the new 4runners but I dislike their complete lack of ground clearance. Toyota forgot the 4Runner's roots (off road vehicle) when they came out with the 4th gen. Now they just need to drop in the 5.7L v8 into the 4Runner!

Originally Posted by Blue01F250

Haha - I wish I had read that story before - that was quite entertaining! Good job!

Thanks!