Head gasket likely, advice/confirmation?

For the protracted time the engine runs with a partially clogged EGR system, it’s not getting sufficient exhaust gas, what gas it does get is overly hot, and the uneven progression of the carbon clogging* leads to some cylinders being completely starved, while others are still so-so.

my 2 cents: the only way to keep the 3rd Gen EGR working the way the engineers envisioned, is to fully clean it, say every 50k miles. It would be expedient to do this in conjunction with engine coolant changes.

I appreciate this borders on absurd, but with Toyota just paying lip service to the issue, what are you going to do…

* With the intake manifold’s EGR capillary passages, one per port, cylinder one tends to starve first, then two, and so on. The 3rd Gen head gasket failures commonly start at the wall between cylinder one and two. With further procrastination, perhaps punctuated with stop leak application, the other cylinders join the chorus.

 

Well really what's important to me in the grand scheme of thing is the total mileage the car made who was sitting in the driver seat is just who paid the money to be there but I understand he got 20K off of whatever was done or that sort of thing so the cars got 200k on it with a blown head gasket and a normal regular stuff It's basically right on schedule like I say at this point given the problems with the engine and the no machining in the replacement recommended that sort of thing The car did well maybe the second person didn't but the car did okay I guess not in my mind but in today's folks this is real good for them I'm expecting at least 350 I mean I expect it Not that I want it which I do I expect it from Toyota and I'm not getting that now and I generally understand why so I will stay with the methodology that has worked for the 4 to 600k. I don't have to keep up with anything to be in any of these things 2024s 2019s etc No need at all what did some Prius guy here say every model gets two or three percent different gas mileage that's okay I don't need that two or three percent from Gen 2 to 3 doesn't motivate me to do anything. Even for 60 miles to the gallon I wouldn't do it for the $200,000 miles that is

 

If the head is warped, get a new head... but if it's not, valves are pretty easy to do (if those even need to be done, you could probably just clean them). I suspect warping isn't happening as much as people think as long as there weren't any overheating instances.

My only thing about the JDM engines is that your getting another engine with a crappy head gasket in it. If I bought a JDM I would be doing my own head gasket job on it before it went in. I've also seen where someone had to hone light rust off the cylinder walls since they sat for so long. That's why I think inspecting your own engine before deciding is smart. My oil-burning 220k engine was minty besides typical carbon deposits on the air intake/valves/piston rings (granted, I caught my blown HG immediately after symptoms and was in the garage within 5 minutes). I'm also only 8k past my HG job so take that for what it's worth.

 

P10 scanner with correct mph or other data. $35

You want oem water pump and thermostats from Toyota dealers retail or online. Counterfeits in Toyota packaging rule on Amazon and EBay.

 

Actually if you look at them they about look identical all the factory gaskets do now what was cool about the PT blue head gasket that fell pro made for all the engines of the old days even 3:50 v8s and MG's even was a blue thing and it was layers of steel sandwich between I don't know what in blue and always had the PT designation before the part number and older Toyota engines with overhead cams like the 22R the same company fell pro made a copper sheet that looked exactly like the head gasket and that was a spacer so when you shaved your head your valve timing wouldn't be off by the thousands you shaved off the head because you're picking it back up with the copper spacer blah blah blah. Today I think it's the number of sheets of steel involved in the business The gasket assembly You see it's riveted or held together by what looks like some sort of rivet that gets flattened out when you squash it down with the 80 lb or whatever it is of torque those three to five layers are what is supposed to do the trick I thought for some reason I don't know why advertising or looking at parts not sure that one of these gaskets was a five-layer dealy in the original was like three I have to go out and look in the trunk of one of the cars where there is a multi-layered I believe it's a PT gasket not blue for the 2ZZ FXE engine and I'll count the layers I guess but I thought somebody here was talking about a modern part number having something like five layers. Fel-Pro is one of thee sealing companies. Been using their stuff since the late '60s. Kind of like the old standard ignition but those days are long gone.

 

There are MANY opinions of which head gasket to buy. felpro gaskets have failed like the
others. If you keep the egr system cleaned and do the head gasket job correctly, either will
last.
I have 44,500+ miles on my Toyota head gasket..... got 303,500+ on the original one.....

 

You really want the OEM head gasket kit because it has all the correct O-rings and gaskets (as far as I know) which the Fel-Pro kit does not. Yes, some people like the Fel-Pro head gasket itself (probably just due to marketing, or brand name recognition), but I doubt anyone has any real world data comparisons between the two and it seems people have success with both.

 

Get the FULL head gasket kit. There are two. The full one has the extra gaskets....

 

Toyota revised the gen3 head gasket in the black sealant layer.

They also changed gen3 pistons, rings, intake, egr valve and ecm software so there is no single magic bullet for a gen3 engine.

In the 2016 gen4 1.8L engine they dramatically changed the cylinder wall cooling, added a foam insulator to even out cylinder wall temps, changed cooling passages, overhauled the egr valve adding a cooling circuit, increased the size of the egr cooler, took egr gas downstream of the cat where it’s cleaner instead of before the cats and a slew of other things. A gen3 engine is unlikely to be as reliable as a gen4.

With that said, a rebuilt engine with all the gen3 revisions combined with 5k mile oil changes may have the best chance of giving another 150k-250k additional engine miles to the average owner.

 

Yeah each gen seems to be outa the pan and into the fire, in one way or another. Gen 4 has Exhaust Heat Recovery failures, which if overlooked and/or misdiagnosed long enough can lead to engine failure. The elephant in the room is Toyota: insufficient testing, and when problems occur, their propensity dodge/deny/ignore them.

The one thing that bugs me about the Toyota gasket kit (either one), it apparently has no documentation as to what goes where. Would be extremely helpful.