Those of you who've read through my site in its entirety will know that I had some trouble with the first rebuild in Winter '99. There weren't many people using the Total Seal rings back then, so I never heard that they had trouble sealing in small diameter cylinder bores. I followed the honing and installation instructions to the letter and it still didn't work out for me. Regardless, it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one having problems with the rings. This isn't to say that they don't work, though--I've heard of 2 people that are very happy with the rings, but even they admit that the rings take seemingly forever to seal. For some odd reason, the Total Seal rings work fine on larger bores.
My advice? Just stick with the OE rings and you'll be fine. It's really not worth the headache, in my opinion, to use these rings on anything except all-out race motors that get rebuilt once or twice every season.
Anyway, in Spring '00, I yanked the head and oil pan/baffle plate off my motor, left the block installed in the bay, and did a quick OEM re-ring job without re-honing the bores. I realize that it was a half-assed solution, but I wanted to get the car running ASAP and was too lazy to pull the motor out. Big mistake... Everything was fine for the first 15K miles; compression was great at 230 psi and the power was strong. Then, little by little, I started to smell traces of burnt oil in the exhaust stream. Compression was still the same, so that kinda worried me. Valve clearances checked out, too. After 2 years of autox conditions and long trips to L.A. and San Diego, the motor never missed a beat, but the smell was still there.
Fast forward to Spring '02... I was tired of the smelly exhaust, so I decided to do a proper re-ring job and throw in new bearings while I was in there. The old bearings looked fine, but, why not, right? I estimated one week for the entire job if things went smoothly. Well, with my luck, they didn't! Toyota's entire Western Region parts warehouses didn't have any undersized con rod bearings in stock. At one point, I had 3 rod bearings on order for me! Also, the machine shop that I used (bore re-honing, piston assy and crank cleaning) somehow lost one of the ARP rod nuts. Doh! I wouldn't have cared, but these were special nuts with a specific thread, tensile strength, and weight (which would've thrown off the internal balance job a little bit). For a few days, I didn't do anything due to the lack of parts.
I decided to assemble as much of the engine as I possibly could. After a dozen or so calls to Bay Area garages, machine, race, and speed shops, my buddy Randy managed to track down a set of the undersized rod bearings I needed. I picked 'em up and eventually installed the piston assemblies in the block. At this point, I was still missing that one ARP rod nut, but I figured I could still slap the whole engine together, throw the tranny on, then drop the quasi-complete drivetrain in the engine bay. I didn't use the gasket maker on the oil pan and baffle plate because I still needed access to the bottom end while the engine was installed.
After almost a week of trying to get the replacement ARP rod nut, it arrived on a Thursday morning. A big heartfelt thanks go to the guys--namely Graham and Chris--at Cyberspace Automotive for getting on ARP's ass (even though it wasn't ARP nor CAP's fault in the least) and procuring my replacement nut for me. That same afternoon, I had the motor all buttoned up and running.
Why did I have my panties in a bunch in the first place? I had an autocross driving school the immediate Saturday, so breaking in the new motor was going to be crazy. I drove up and down the California coast on Thursday late night and all of Friday. Friday afternoon, on the way back down from Point Reyes on Highway 1, I decided to cut across Sonoma and head towards Napa where my best friend, Floyd, and I mapped out an ~80-mile cycling route. It was full of every combination of curves, speeds, and altitude changes, so I wouldn't fall asleep and the motor would get loaded. All told, I racked up a little over 500 miles in about 16 hours.
The motor still felt a little on the tight side at the autocross school, but the power was definitely there. In fact, the motor's so smooth that it feels deceptively slower than before. Enough talk. Let's check out the pics...
Alan came over and helped me and my Dad pull the drivetrain out. Alan and I decided to just pull the entire hub-and-axle assembly out instead
of breaking the axle nuts off with an impact wrench (which we didn't have).
The work area stayed surprisingly clean in spite of the drivetrain bits and tools we had around.
You can see the main bearing studs and some engine assembly lube on the crank journals. If you look closely enough, you can also see the OEM-sized
bearing marks on the sides of the counterweights. They're all "zeros" across the board.
The cleaned piston assemblies and con rod caps. The one tilted towards you already has the rod bearing installed. You can't really see it clearly,
but the rings are already installed and properly located.
Piston assemblies installed and rod caps torqued (except for the one cap that's missing the ARP nut). You can see the head studs, too. Always be
sure to chase the threads and clean them out before installing the studs. You'll be assured of accurate torque readings and won't risk a blown
head gasket. I also recommend using ARP's assembly lube with their fasteners. Redline also makes a good moly-based lube that's good for critical
fasteners.