Anyone here using full synthetic on an old 22RE Toyota engine? What's your OCI?

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My early 90's Toyota pickup has the 22RE 4 banger/shaker in it. Pushing up towards the 350K mile range right now and did 10w-30 conventional for 4K (roughly) OCI its whole life. Engine only had some varnish last time it was open and nothing else gummed up.

I recently switched to a M1 HM 10w-40 FS and plan on doing longer OCI. Maybe 6K on the first OCI, then on the next one using same oil do an UOA at 6K and see what's going on.

Something about these 22RE motors is that it's hard to find any owners online who don't change their oil every 2-3K. Toyota service interval is for up to 7.5K miles on easy highway driving, and only down to 3.5K for the most extreme conditions. As to why guys using their rigs for normal road use change the oil at 2-3K is beyond me, unless they really enjoy the change process that much? LOL

Does anyone here have some info or UOA of people extending their OCI with FS in the early 90's Toyota truck engines? I think with doing mostly highway miles, I could get it to 8K pretty easily? I don't have an ideal place to work on my vehicles, so doing the OCI less often is my main motivator.
 
Here is a photo of my 1992 Toyota pickup with a 22RE in it. 330,000 miles in service. My pickup sees an average of 3,500 miles between oil changes because of short trips, idling and calendar based oil changes. I use synthetic 5w30 from November through April and usually Rotella straight 30 or other HDEO 15w40 May through October. I don't drive that much these days.

I have replaced two cylinder heads on this pickup because the original OE head cracked at 175,000 miles and leaked coolant and the replacement ATK overhauled head cracked within 30 thousand miles while consuming more oil and having leaky valves.

The current head on my pickup is a new casting that was assembled at a cylinder head shop and has been very good for 125,000 miles so far. The bottom end of the engine is original untouched aside from replacing a front main oil seal. About one half quart of oil consumption per 3,500 miles.
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It may clean things up a bit but keep an eye on the oil level if switching to M1 and that application. Even if it doesn't use oil now. Otherwise go for it.
Good call. Although, it didn't use more than a couple ounces the last 4.5K oil change.
 
Here is a photo of my 1992 Toyota pickup with a 22RE in it. 330,000 miles in service. My pickup sees an average of 3,500 miles between oil changes because of short trips, idling and calendar based oil changes. I use synthetic 5w30 from November through April and usually Rotella straight 30 or other HDEO 15w40 May through October. I don't drive that much these days.

I have replaced two cylinder heads on this pickup because the original OE head cracked at 175,000 miles and leaked coolant and the replacement ATK overhauled head cracked within 30 thousand miles while consuming more oil and having leaky valves.

The current head on my pickup is a new casting that was assembled at a cylinder head shop and has been very good for 125,000 miles so far. The bottom end of the engine is original untouched aside from replacing a front main oil seal. About one half quart of oil consumption per 3,500 miles.View attachment 46938View attachment 46939View attachment 46940View attachment 46941
Isn't this NSFW engine porn? ;) Looks good! Much better than mine, as I probably ran it too long a few times on conventional which varnished it up a bit. I don't think these engines ever had any sludge issues though, even if not maintained perfectly.
 
If Toyota was smart they'd still be building that exact engine!
I don't know. The newer 4 bangers are just as good, if not a little more complex, but still go the long distance in reliability. The 22RE is also pretty dang slow and struggles with heavier vehicles. I'm the target of mucho road rage from aggro monster truck beef-monkeys who don't realize I'm giving it full throttle. LOL
 
I used to love adjusting the valve clearance on my 1993 Toyota 4wd PU with the 22RE. What a great engine!
Mine have never been adjusted, unless the mechanic happened to do it at some point without me realizing it. As they say, a noisy 22RE is a happy 22RE. Plus, even if I did want to adjust it now, it probably has pretty good pits worn at the adjuster screws that would make the feeler gauge not show the real gap.
 
I bought a 1995 4Runner with a 22RE about 9 months ago and am running Supertech Full Syn 5W-30 high mileage.

not sure what i am gunna run for OCI. It doesnt get driven enough that i would need to do a change on mileage i dont think though so I will probably just do it once a year.
 
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I don't know. The newer 4 bangers are just as good, if not a little more complex, but still go the long distance in reliability. The 22RE is also pretty dang slow and struggles with heavier vehicles. I'm the target of mucho road rage from aggro monster truck beef-monkeys who don't realize I'm giving it full throttle. LOL
Thats what I love about my 22RE. I just floor it and it goes the speed limit. 😂
 
Mine have never been adjusted, unless the mechanic happened to do it at some point without me realizing it. As they say, a noisy 22RE is a happy 22RE. Plus, even if I did want to adjust it now, it probably has pretty good pits worn at the adjuster screws that would make the feeler gauge not show the real gap.
Still wouldnt be a bad idea to give it a look though
 
My brother had one, and did 5,000 mile intervals in Northern Virginia's stop and go traffic. No issues for over 10 years until he failed to change the timing chain tensioners....
 
Mine have never been adjusted, unless the mechanic happened to do it at some point without me realizing it. As they say, a noisy 22RE is a happy 22RE. Plus, even if I did want to adjust it now, it probably has pretty good pits worn at the adjuster screws that would make the feeler gauge not show the real gap.

What is it with 22RE and Slant 6 Owners and refusal to adjust the valves?

That said my buddy used to use M1 5W-30 and 10,000 mi oci with weekly driving and weekend offroading. He sold it at just shy of 300,000 mi (Just an infant) so no idea how it would have lasted compared to the ones with double the miles on plain old conventional at shorter intervals.
 
What is it with 22RE and Slant 6 Owners and refusal to adjust the valves?

That said my buddy used to use M1 5W-30 and 10,000 mi oci with weekly driving and weekend offroading. He sold it at just shy of 300,000 mi (Just an infant) so no idea how it would have lasted compared to the ones with double the miles on plain old conventional at shorter intervals.
Honestly, I didn't know as much about valve adjustments until the last few years, at least in terms of stuff that requires taking the engine apart a bit. For all I know, they were adjusted at some point without me knowing or remembering. I had it in a shop in Seattle once for something that was hard to figure out and they tossed a number of things at it before it got fixed.

Really, the only reason to adjust the valves at this point would be to quiet it down and maybe gain a little power back, but from what I have read, these engines will last a long time and are happy with noisy valves. I can live with the noise rather than risk getting one of the valves too tight and burning it out.
 
One of the best things about the 22RE is that the gas pedal is a noise level adjustment and not so much a power output adjustment. LOL
 
what's the point when those bad boys can go 500k on any cheap dino 5w30/40 10w30/40 mix...
The point is that I don't have to find a place to change the oil as often. I'm fine with working on my vehicles, but changing the oil isn't something I take any pleasure in doing. Not as fun especially with no garage or proper driveway to use. If I extend the OCI with FS HM oil, I'm actually spending a little less money per mile on oil than doing shorter OCI with conventional. Plus, I think it has been shown that the M1 HM FS 10w-40 has a little better PPM of ZDDP than standard conventional oils, which is a bonus for these flat tappet engines.
 
Were these engines known for timing chain tensioner failure? I thought they were. If I had one I would change every 5K miles or annually if driven less than that.
 
Were these engines known for timing chain tensioner failure? I thought they were. If I had one I would change every 5K miles or annually if driven less than that.
Yes, but it is with the poor design of the chain guides, which were 100% plastic and would break after too many hot-cold cycles and just general wear making them brittle. I had mine changed to metal-backed guides which should last much longer. My original ones lasted until 230K and were still working when I had them replaced proactively.

I don't think it had much to do with the oil and chain itself as much as just a poor design from Toyota where a little chunk of plastic would wreck the whole system.
 
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