Post by MuddyCali4Runner on Jul 11, 2003 20:09:24 GMT -5
***DISCLAIMER This was borrowed from another web site******** This is NOT my OWN work******* Credit must be given to one Johnny Lange*******
Looking for ways to increase the HP in my tired little 4 popper, I searched around on the internet. With over 220,000 miles on my rig, one would say I probably need to have my engine rebuilt. Maybe so, but much to my surprise in doing a compression check last week, I discovered each cylinder to still be holding around 150 psi, which I pretty good for a engine with that many miles on it. According to the manual, you should be concerned if your rating is under 120.
One restless night I sat up browsing Roger's endless precision information on his website. I found some articles on how he had his fuel injectors cleaned, balanced, and measured and how he checked his throttle body and discovered "black goo" and what a huge difference he found cleaning this. Roger’s 85 4Runner has over 200K miles on it and so does mine. I took his advise to heart and the next morning decided to dive into my runners intake.
I started out just wanting to check my throttle body for this thick black "goo". Initial inspection without removing it found that it "appeared" to be pretty clean looking down into the body. When I pulled it off, HOLY MOLY, there it was, run for your lives!!!!! THE BLACK GOOO!!!!!
I couldn’t believe my eyes. This black crap was just caked on the back flap of the flutter on the throttle body. And just when I thought I had seen it all, I just about soiled my pants! I grabbed my flashlight and looked in the deep dark hole in the EFI plenum. Suddenly I felt like the "Crocodile Hunter" peering in a deep dark swamp in Australia waiting for the teeth of a crock to come up and grab me. The black soot and sludge was so caked in there, it looked it someone had literally been eating cupcakes in the plenum!! CAKED black stuff!
I started scraping the stuff out and realized there is just no way this was going to work. Off to the parts store I went for a can of engine cleaner and later a trip to the pressure washer.
Since I had all this fun stuff out already, I pulled out my fuel injector’s. Looking at them appeared that they were fine. I decided to send them off to the shop anyway to make sure. And besides, this is what Roger did which yielded him some results.
I called Wally’s Injection Service in SLC (just randomly plucked him out of the phone book) and he was able to have them done in about 8 hours. $80 bucks later, I had cleaned balanced fuel injectors. Wally stated that the injectors were a bit "stringy". They need to be "misty". Such technical terms.......
I stopped by the Toyota dealership and picked up 4 new fuel injector rubber seats as mine were toast. Dry and brittle. A couple bucks later I obtained 4 new seals, part # 23291-41010.
I went home, cleaned everything as best as I could, put it all back together and then the creative side of my brain started functioning. I dug out some "Race Car Red" engine paint and painted the plenum for an additional 20 horsepower "look". :-)
The results:
Very Very Impressive! After putting it all back together, and rechecking the timing, I went for a drive. Seriously I felt the cleaning and FI service made a 15 HP difference that I could definitely feel! The idle was perfect and stutter free and the response is killer. A very good easy cleaning that yielded some killer results. It’s amazing what some cleaning will do!
Looking for ways to increase the HP in my tired little 4 popper, I searched around on the internet. With over 220,000 miles on my rig, one would say I probably need to have my engine rebuilt. Maybe so, but much to my surprise in doing a compression check last week, I discovered each cylinder to still be holding around 150 psi, which I pretty good for a engine with that many miles on it. According to the manual, you should be concerned if your rating is under 120.
One restless night I sat up browsing Roger's endless precision information on his website. I found some articles on how he had his fuel injectors cleaned, balanced, and measured and how he checked his throttle body and discovered "black goo" and what a huge difference he found cleaning this. Roger’s 85 4Runner has over 200K miles on it and so does mine. I took his advise to heart and the next morning decided to dive into my runners intake.
I started out just wanting to check my throttle body for this thick black "goo". Initial inspection without removing it found that it "appeared" to be pretty clean looking down into the body. When I pulled it off, HOLY MOLY, there it was, run for your lives!!!!! THE BLACK GOOO!!!!!
I couldn’t believe my eyes. This black crap was just caked on the back flap of the flutter on the throttle body. And just when I thought I had seen it all, I just about soiled my pants! I grabbed my flashlight and looked in the deep dark hole in the EFI plenum. Suddenly I felt like the "Crocodile Hunter" peering in a deep dark swamp in Australia waiting for the teeth of a crock to come up and grab me. The black soot and sludge was so caked in there, it looked it someone had literally been eating cupcakes in the plenum!! CAKED black stuff!
I started scraping the stuff out and realized there is just no way this was going to work. Off to the parts store I went for a can of engine cleaner and later a trip to the pressure washer.
Since I had all this fun stuff out already, I pulled out my fuel injector’s. Looking at them appeared that they were fine. I decided to send them off to the shop anyway to make sure. And besides, this is what Roger did which yielded him some results.
I called Wally’s Injection Service in SLC (just randomly plucked him out of the phone book) and he was able to have them done in about 8 hours. $80 bucks later, I had cleaned balanced fuel injectors. Wally stated that the injectors were a bit "stringy". They need to be "misty". Such technical terms.......
I stopped by the Toyota dealership and picked up 4 new fuel injector rubber seats as mine were toast. Dry and brittle. A couple bucks later I obtained 4 new seals, part # 23291-41010.
I went home, cleaned everything as best as I could, put it all back together and then the creative side of my brain started functioning. I dug out some "Race Car Red" engine paint and painted the plenum for an additional 20 horsepower "look". :-)
The results:
Very Very Impressive! After putting it all back together, and rechecking the timing, I went for a drive. Seriously I felt the cleaning and FI service made a 15 HP difference that I could definitely feel! The idle was perfect and stutter free and the response is killer. A very good easy cleaning that yielded some killer results. It’s amazing what some cleaning will do!
