Life in Prado Land

[Geoffrey Carter]

Friday I flew up to Virginia and drove the Cruiser home 600 miles, Friday was also the best leg of the trip having glorious mountain views and perfect driving conditions.... Saturday sucked, fog, cold rain and finally a dead cylinder less than 3 hours from home. Still not sure if it's a valve issue or a bad injector but I have a good ping and thud thing going on with massive amounts of black smoke under hard throttle but little to no smoke under normal throttle after being warmed up but sound is still there but i'm still driving it around because it's a blast to drive. Here comes the questions... If it comes down to needing a new head is Quantico cylinder head any good they offer 2L and 3L heads for fairly cheap under $500 for a complete drop in unit. Has anyone used 80 series spring spacers on our rigs I've searched and haven't come across spacers just springs as an option from the 80, My electric dampening is still good so I'm not wanting to buy new shocks just wanting .75-1" spacers. I'll start posting pics once I get a gallery set up.

Cheers

Geoffrey

 

[AirheadNut]

If you’re referring to the Chinese cylinder heads like are on eBay I would stay away. Apparently they aren’t much better than the original one. Genuine Toyota heads, either the 2L-TE or 3L, are really the best option.

Not sure about the spring spacers, I know that 80-series front springs work in the rear of a Prado, so presumably 80 front spacers would fit the rear springs. I believe @GTSSportCoupe ran some spacers in the front of his rig for a while, but I can’t remember if they were custom or not.

Good luck on fixing the misfire issue, hopefully it isn’t something too terrible

 

[GTSSportCoupe]

I'd recommend not driving your Prado until you get your engine problem sorted out. Driving it like it is could damage things further. Doesn't sound like a cylinder head issue to me. Sounds more injection system related. Could very well be an injector issue if you feel it's related to just one cylinder. When you start the engine cold, do you have missfire on one cylinder until it warms up? Smoke?

You can pull codes from the computer and see what comes out. The method for doing this is documented on the hilux surf au tech page.

I'd recommend starting with fuel filter change, oil change, and other general baseline/maintenance stuff. Many of us also remove the EGR and throttle system to give the motor more air. Just search and read, search and read, search and read. Lots of good info on this forum regarding these motors now.

Regarding front spring spacers, the ones for the heavy duty 70 series coil springs work fine (from australia). The brand I bought was 'polytuff' if I remember right.

 

[Geoffrey Carter]

I'd recommend not driving your Prado until you get your engine problem sorted out. Driving it like it is could damage things further. Doesn't sound like a cylinder head issue to me. Sounds more injection system related. Could very well be an injector issue if you feel it's related to just one cylinder. When you start the engine cold, do you have missfire on one cylinder until it warms up? Smoke?

You can pull codes from the computer and see what comes out. The method for doing this is documented on the hilux surf au tech page.

I'd recommend starting with fuel filter change, oil change, and other general baseline/maintenance stuff. Many of us also remove the EGR and throttle system to give the motor more air. Just search and read, search and read, search and read. Lots of good info on this forum regarding these motors now.

Regarding front spring spacers, the ones for the heavy duty 70 series coil springs work fine (from australia). The brand I bought was 'polytuff' if I remember right.

A lot of basic maintenance was done before I drove it home, I'll start with the fuel system when I get it back towards the house and as for the spacers thank you for the help on that I'll see if they work front and rear. Not trying to do too much of a lift.