alright so i have a 1991 toyota pickup, 5-speed manual, 22RE motor, 141k original miles, never rebuilt..

so a week ago i was driving down the street from my house and all of a sudden it started to idle like ABSOLUTE SHIT, like it was vapor locking or the head gasket had gone out.

i immediately shut it off and coasted to the gas station parking lot, call AAA, get it towed to the shop i used to do chassis work for (their engine guy they got is supposed to be excellent with the little toyota motors)

they run through the normal diagnostics, check compression, spark, fuel delivery, the whole nine yards.

it gets spark
it gets fuel
all compression readings are A-OK

shop suspects ECU failure, so they swap a new one in, no change

now they suspect ignitor, so they swap a new one in, no change...

does anyone have a clue what it could be??

is my truck just cursed?

Yeah it's most likely a simple sensor. Many possibilities.

theyve checked like everything supposedly..

they even ordered a brand new 500$ ignitor, didnt fix the problem in the slightest.

no check engine light either btw, no indication.

truck refused to respond to throttle and wanted to bog out when too much throttle was applied.

it couldnt be the throttle body could it?

This... what is the fueling like when it is running? There is more to using a scan tool, even OBD 1, than checking codes.

alright guys update:

found out the distributor cap was on 180 degrees the wrong way, but plugs were in the correct position, totally my fault, i bought a new cap, rotor, plugs and wires about 3 months ago.

i dont know much about engines but i figured it was straight up, screw the new cap on in the same position as the old, the screw holes matched up and that was the end of that...

well since i fucked that up, it had been tightening all the valves, to the point where they couldnt even get a feeler gauge on them...

three cylinders running at 170 or 180 pounds, which is correct, and one cylinder is down at 120, obviously not good... lol

so they have to pull the head, get it machined, and figure out if its only one valve that went bad or all of them.

the cap itself was 180 degrees the wrong way, but i connected the wires the correct way...

this is the shop i used to work at but the owner has always been a douche and he could be trying to fuck me... theyve had my truck for almost a week and are just figuring it out.

E/
i'll admit right now, i know basically nothing about repairing engines or doing shit to them. i know transmissions, suspension, electrical, and an OK amount about differentials but as soon as you pop the hood im like "yep, thats an engine..."

This post was edited by superfinger on Feb 18 2016 11:13pm

They are crooks. Nothing takes a week to diagnose on a 25 year old pick up.

im assuming you mean they done a compression test on the cylinders. how do they know its a bad valve and not the piston rings? i honestly dont believe you drove it 3 months with the distributor 180 out firing on the wrong cylinders and just now noticed problems. something sounds fishy about this diagnostic team youre using.

and please tell us you arent paying for these expensive parts they are throwing at it and not fixing it with.

This post was edited by JDH on Feb 19 2016 03:58am