My truck, a work in progress
Sunday, January 21, 2001
  Part 4: The new engine roars to life! (01/21/01)

Well, another month and more steady progress on the truck. Maybe not as much as I had hoped for, but things have been very, very busy at work, and I haven't had as much time or energy to devote to the project as I wanted. And we are, after all, expecting a baby in March (our first!) But enough excuses... Let’s see, when I left off last month, I had just returned home with the engine, and was looking forward to installing it. I’m glad to say that the installation was pretty straightforward, and the engine went in in a couple of hours and got hooked up over the course of about two weeks -- not real quick, but, well, these things can take time. This in not nearly as simple as hooking up a 22R or 22RE - the aftermarket turbo plumbing is a bitch to bolt together, and it all has to be installed in just the right order, or it won't go together at all. And there was new stuff to plumb and wire as well. Anyway, as I said, the final bits took several days longer that I had thought they would, but I got everything finished and filled the engine and radiator with fluids at about 7 pm on Sunday night, Jan. 7.

The following morning, my heart pounding, I went to start her up for the first time since mid-October. I was so worried about turning that key that I was up late the night before going over things in my head, trying to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything or messed anything up. With all of the money and time I had poured into the engine, I had a lot to think about...and since I didn’t want to start the engine for the first time at night, I had all night to worry about it...

Anyway, at 8:00 am I hooked up the battery and nervously put the key in the ignition. Man, had the dash gotten dusty in the intervening three months! And it felt odd to be looking OUT the windshield after months of looking at it from the engine compartment. I wanted to prime the oil pump and fuel system before I ran the engine in earnest, so I pulled the plugs and got ready to turn the engine over. This was really it: if we had screwed up an oil control ring or made some other (unlikely) mistake, I would trash the motor as soon as I hit the key. Swallowing deeply, I hit the key and waited for the gauge to build some pressure. About 20 looooong seconds later, the gauge came up, and I was ready to put the plugs in and do this for real.
With the plugs in, I hit the key listened to the engine come to life. May, that was something! Starting an engine that you rebuilt (or helped rebuild) is just so gratifying, I'm sure it's addictive. Anyway, I proceeded to break it in -- 30 minutes of constantly varying 2000-3000 rpm gyrations -- and watched and listened for any obvious signs of distress. After 30 minutes, I shut it off and took a look under the hood. Hmmm...I had a steady oil leak from my newly plumbed remote Oberg/Racor oil filter (my fault: overtightened reducer bushing), so I shut the engine down and pulled that assembly while I put the old parts back in. I'll get the new filter in eventually...

So, after 30 minutes of break in, and 45 minutes of filter wrangling, I was ready to change the oil and take it out on the road. Woo hoo! The thrill of pulling out of the driveway and actually motoring down the road was awesome! I drove the 25 miles to work with my eyes constantly sweeping the gauges, both elated and worried, expecting things to somehow, y'know, stop working or something. But there were no surprises, and the new motor ran like a champ!
The next 400 miles were very, very difficult, as I wanted to fully break the motor in before I found out what I had, while at the same time I **really** wanted to nail that pedal to the floor and feel the engine make some POWER. Restraint won out, for the most part, and I just tooled along for 500 miles -- never brought the engine into boost, never brought it above 4000 rpm. In retrospect, I might have done things a little differently -- late in the break in phase I discovered a lean condition at cruise that I wish I had spotted a little earlier, as I inadvertently let the exhaust gas temps climb higher than I should have for longer than I should have -- but the motor is built like a tank, and it doesn't appear that I've damaged anything. So, after 400+ miles, I declared the motor broken in, and it was time to see what I had under the hood.
I found out two things right away: 1) this engine had the potential for *a lot* of power, and 2) my tweaked and modified stock EFI system was in no shape to safely control this engine. Yep, no question about either point: if I wanted this engine to work like God and Tim intended it to, I would have to get that Speed Pro computer hooked up ASAP. The modified stock setup I was using (470 cc/min injectors, 5MGE (big body) AFM with 22RTE traceboard, and stock 22RTE computer), was not well matched for safely powering this engine all the way to 300 hp -- too many holes and weird spots in the various fuel and ignition maps. For 200+ hp, the setup performed without any major problems, but when I tried to make any real power, I would either hit fuel cut or see my exhaust gas temps rise to dangerous levels. Neither one of those is any fun. Make no mistake, though: this engine wanted to make some power! Clearly, though, it would be foolish to keep pounding this engine with a bad setup when I had a kick-ass replacement computer ready to install. Sigh...time to take truck out of service again while Phase II got underway.

So that's where we end this month's installment: on the cusp of the new computer install, and (hopefully) on the cusp of having a properly tuned, properly fueled 300 hp motor. I spent the weekend (1/20 & 1/21) working on getting the new computer into the truck, and I've made a lot of progress: I have it mounted (found a great place behind the fan assembly crossover tube on the firewall on the passenger's side), and have the fuel rail off and a lot of wires strewn about. My wife says that it looks like a pipe bomb exploded inside the cab -- virtually the whole dash is out, and parts and wires are strewn everywhere. I have several more days of work to get everything wired and ready to go again, but this is generally easier than getting the motor in, and I hope that if I devote a couple of nights to it this week, I can have it ready to run off the new computer by the end of next weekend.

So stay tuned. I think the next installment will be an interesting one, as I'll either be getting the computer tuned (which means some dyno numbers and real driving impressions) or cursing at myself for wrecking a perfectly good engine! Either way, it should make for some interesting reading! 


The ongoing saga of my 1986 Toyota 4x4 truck and its much-modified 22RTE turbo engine.

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