1990 22re not running good, help help help

I have a 1990 toyota pick up 22re that is not doing so well all of a sudden. the truck has run perfect for ever and never had any problems. all maintance is up to date and the truck has been babied for the most part.

Recently when i start the truck it pulses and runs like its on 3 cylineders. it has a terrible miss and the entire engine vibrates. after a period of time it clears up and seems to be pretty much normal.

I have checked for vaccuum leaks and seems that tehre are none. I have heard about this sensor and that sensor but I am totaly lost. I have done a full tune up on it with all new plugs, wires and rotor with int he past few months but that was before this started happening.

please help with any info.

Thanks, i know some of you toyota guys know these motors in and out but i have not dodne much work on these in the past.

i would say start by replacing your fuel filter, and run a bottle or two of fuel system clean through it. it could also be the coil or the igniter. possibly a vaccum leak in a non typical spot, suck as the intake manifold (upper to lower half, or to the head) or something like that.

run an engine cleaner called "seafoam" through one of you vacuum intakes off your brake booster.for some reason it sounds like fuel filter or injector related issue. ive had toyotas my whole life seen alot of different diagnosis problems and they are all very simple.just remember that.

Its not a computer issue is it? If you have a spare ecu available plug it in and check. Mazda EFI trucks will run similar when an injector driver is messed up in the computer.

I have not changed the fuel filter in a while and plan to as soon as i get time to mess with it in the next few days. although i am pretty convinced it is not the case. it runs an wont stall but it just has a really bad miss. the thing that confuses me is that it is totally intermittent. every time i run the truck it is a little different. i also plan running a fuel system cleaner through the intake manifold but again sometimes it runs fine.( usually after a few minutes of running) but also keep in mind that when it is running good it will still have a random miss here and here and also sometimes what seems to be a low sounding back fire.

also i failed to mention for a really long time the brake light in the truck would come one every once in a while. then when you would hit the brakes it would go off and then when you release come back on. well after about a year now it is on most of the time and goes off sometimes but mostly on. all the fluid is full and the brakes are working fine. becuase of this i was in search of a vaccuum problem but cannot find anything.

As far as the ecu i do not have a spare to test but am going to try and find one. i once had an s10 thta did the weirdest things and it turnede out to be an ecu that cleared it all up.

sounds like a bad injector. It's a 90 so it's 18 years old. I'd go ahead and put new injectors in it along with the new filter. It wouldn't hurt.

if it was a bad injector wouldt run crappy all the time. also when it is running crappy the exhaust almost smells like a 2 stroke motor. it seems like there is way to much gas just from the way the exhaust smells.

Sorry. I'd go ahead then and try to find an ecu that you could swap in. After you get the exhaust smell have you pulled the plugs to see what they look like. You could narrow it down to which cylinder is causing the problem. How many miles does this engine have?

if it smells like a 2 stroke that means too much gas or burning oil. oil is usually valve guides or piston rings. depending how much oil gets in it can run rough til it burns away. or too much gas and same thing. how do the o2 sensors look? is the cat plugged up? does it run fine cold but bad warm or the other way around?

have you checked your air intake and air flow meter, is the truck b/d ? is the intake tube damaged ?

if your air meter is off, it will send the wrong signal to the ECM causing the wrong amount of fuel to be sent into the engine thus inturn giving the 2 stroke smell