Hey dude, so your engine is from an Auto donor vehicle, right? Well how does the valve train look? I got to hand select my current MR2 engine down in LA at a Japan engine importer, and I chose an engine from an auto. The engine (4A-GE) is low mileage and high compression (10.5:1) unlike our sorry US engines (9.1:1)... My thinking was Hey, it's from an auto so it must not have been raced as much, cant dump any clutch, also the auto absorbs all change in throttle and you don't downshift from 5th reaching to 1st gear at 7k rpm in an auto, so I thought it was just plus plus plus by choosing an auto engine.. Boy was I wrong.
When I got back home, I pulled the oil covers. Brown nasty sludgy oil caked all over. It was like oil rust, it was baked on. Obviously this engine had spent alot of hours just purring away in hot stop and go traffic and the people didnt change the oil much. And when I got it running, it pukes out blue smoke on decel = high vacuum = pulling oil past the rings and into the cylinders and out the tail pipe. Damn that sucks. The engine runs great, compression check is good, but the oil rings are shot..
Anyways, I think the only good thing about an auto engine is that the thrust bearings on the crank should have less wear on them. Otherwise I think it's a toss up. Next time I'm at an engine shop, I'm gonna bring some tools to remove the valve covers while I am there. If they won't let me, then I can always go some where else..
Anyways, back to your topic, you know my 3RZ that I just swapped into my '81 felt terrible when I was checking the clutch and flywheel. I actually couldn't get the pressure plate bolts back on because the flywheel would turn super easily. I was thinking, dang what's up? It's a huge 4banger (2.7) and it's got mad compression 9.5:1 for a truck engine, and since I didnt know the history on the engine I thought it was all wasted and worn out.. But nope, it runs great and has a very strong slow down in gear while coasting, so I know it's a big engine with big compression, coasts and stops much faster than Marlin's worn out 22MAR engine with more weight on board.
So I wouldn't worry about it AT ALL. Just get the thing going and it should work out for ya. If you want, run a compression test... and sometimes engines can have sloppy compression during cranking (below 500rpm) but once you get pressures in the cylinders and higher rpms, alot changes-
BigMike
