1994 22RE Had Top End Rebuilt - Now Runs Rough And Burns a Lot of Gas.

[Auspuff]

Greetings, I am new to this forum, thus this is my first post (and boy is a big one). Maybe some of you out there can give me some insight into this issue I now have with a 1994 22RE.

The head gasket and timing chain guide (and was eaten by the engine - Thank God they are plastic) went at 197,000 miles. I had the top end done, and it ran great for about 1,500 miles. I am the original owner, thus I know every little sound this truck makes and every little vibration that it should not have. Well, one day it began to run rough like it lost a cylinder and began to burn a lot of gas. I took it back to the shop that did the engine work, and their best guess was a bad fuel injector. I also checked around with other shops as to what it might be and the almost universal answer was that the valves need to be checked/adjusted at 3,000 miles after the overhaul. My shop did the check at 1,000 miles and declared it OK. Thus, here is my big question:

Are the folks that say it is the valves be correct?

I talked with one shop that said the head may have been incorrectly machined, thus the valves are seating too far into the head. Can this happen?

And finally, what are the best spark plugs for this engine?

Confused in Los Angeles.

[Toycrawler]

I seriously doubt your issue is in the valvetrain but it is posssible no matter how minute the chance. if your valves are improperly adjusted it would cause a topend rattle if they were too lose and if they were too tight it would cause a miss but they valve lash would NOT just tighten up after 1500 miles. So thats not it.

To start pull your check engine codes and let us know what its telling you.

To get the check engine codes look under your hood on the passenger side there is a fuse box on the fender well and attached to it is a small box that says "diagnostic" on top of it. Open that box up and run a small jumper wire between the e1 and te1 terminals go inside and turn the key switch to the "on" position and watch the check engine light blinks

hope that helps a little

[denniswoo]

If anything I would say that things would loosen up after 1k or so miles. A fuel injector misfiring would cause a definite miss and if it were over-fueling in that cylinder it could cause a rich condition in that cylinder. you can pull your plugs and check each one they should be whitish colored when they are running normally. I would buy plugs accordingly to this, if you do a lot of short run driving say 5 10 mile at a time I would run a hotter plug. If you run consistent miles at a time 50 to 100 miles at a time then I would run a cooler burning plug. Running long distance at a time your plugs will have time to clean themselves, running shorter distances they tend to carbon up. As far as brand that is preference. I am running the platinum plugs in my truck and was running Bosch and the old plugs I ran for about 3 years, they didn't show any signs of wear and were a good white slightly tan color.

[Raffaelli]

Putting ideas here...

Fuel pressure regulator not gettin vaccum, like a busted or disconnected hose. A fuel pressure test tells volumes. Could have a stuck injector too. +1 on checking the plugs.

My opinion, Nippondenso/NGK for asian engines. AC/Motocraft/autolite for american and Bosches for german. ect. Had good luck with that.

[maxpower_hd]

It could be any number of things incliding the valves but it could also be completely unrelated to the repair. Pull the codes like already mentioned. There doesn't necessarily need to be a CEL on to have codes. It could be a TPS, O2 sensor, etc.

Good luck.