2.7 Rebuild Recommendations?

Visible cracks between intake and exhaust valves on 2 & 3. There must be more internal cracks that can't be seen that caused coolant to flood #2. I did not check valve clearances before pulling the cams to get the heads off, but I'll bet they were tight.

 

This is my cyl no 1 :



That little bent in the gasket caused coolant leak into cylinder when not running and exhaust gasses bubbles in coolant when engine was running. That little bent made the engine run on 3 cylinders for few seconds on startup and the lean on three other cylinders (not throwing the code, just high Nox during CA SMOG).

 

Rather getting my OEM head machined and have all the valve seats done and whatnot. I bought a new cylinder head from kingcylinderheads.com
They were relatively local to me at the time so I was able to get it delivered in a day which was awesome.
Pretty good deal considering everything you get. Decent warranty, all new upper valvetrain componentry (cams, gears, etc), and valves clearanced to spec. Not to mention the peace of mind
I dealt with Mike during the whole process. He was super responsive, glad to help with any issues, and helped answer any of my questions.
definitely recommend them if you decide to go that route.

 

How many miles have you put on it?

That is tempting, but I still have some hesitation about non-oem heads on a truck that I am hoping to drive for 200-300k before another rebuild. I'm thinking of springing for the complete LCE head - they build it on a brand new OEM head casting. I will have to reuse my buckets and cams (which look ok), and I will have to set the valve clearances myself (which I'm comfortable with). Has anyone here used a stage 1 LCE head?

No matter what I get, I will be adjusting the valve clearances after about 40-50k, and then every 100k miles. Gonna see how long I can go on a fresh build if all the maintenance is done properly.

Block is stripped down other than a couple of bolts I just noticed in the photo. Off to the machine shop tomorrow...

 

I've found YotaShop to be a really good source for those harder to find parts, and OEM quality parts.

https://www.yotashop.com/2003-toyota-tacoma-3rz-engine-parts/

 

Crankshaft and new main bearings went in today.

 

@MrRiverMan I like the way you think and the bottom end looks good. Should I live long enough (unlikely) to get 300k on mine this is the plan.

 

How hard would it to be to swap the 2.7 with the hilux 3.0 diesel motor?

 

Seek and you shall find.

dieseltoys.com

 

Well my motor blew up and Im picking up a rebuild kit. Does anyone know what power gains you could expect from boring 0.04"? 4 month lead time is making me shy away from forged pistons but should I wait? I have a backup truck but I love my little taco.