Clogged intake and cylinder head.

[knights_in]

Hi all. I am new to this forum and thought I would ask a few questions.

Firstly I have a Rav 4 T180 2AD-FHV 2006 (yes I know it was a recall car but I got it a few year ago as third owner). 

Idles at 1500 RPM, very little to no acceleration until you reached 2500RPM, to the point where it actually dies off on slight hills or pulling away from a stand still if you aren't in the 2500+ "power band". Recently experienced over pressuring of the coolant system (would blow out the top of the expansion tank), I replaced the cap with a known good one and it did exactly the same. 

A "sniff" test was carried out on the expansion test which came back as a positive for CO2.

I have removed the EGR cooler as I suspected it to be faulty but after carrying out a very back garage leak down test on it it seems to be fine. 

My attentions then turned to the Actual head gasket/cylinder head/block. This is where I've gotten to. Could I have missed something or need to carry out any further checks. Any ideas on what is causing this to happen?

I have severe "soot" build up in the first two cylinders to the point it looks like cylinder one it working on one inlet valve. Inlet manifold is pretty dier too. EGR itself was a little blocked but not to the point it couldn't open or close properly. I do have pictures, just haven't managed to upload them to this thread. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[philip42h]

Have you seen:

 

[knights_in]

Yes I have seen that link. The engine I have isn't burning oil though, Just coolant.

[knights_in]

I meant to update this with my findings. I was able to strip the head off the car with the engine in situ. I found that the inlet was clogged due to a faulty EGR cooler. This was also giving the false HG failure. I had to replace the HG anyway as I removed the cylinder head for cleaning. Had it back on the road for about a month now with it all working perfectly. Fuel economy has also nearly doubled.