95 3vze no spark

So I have a 95 4 runner 3.0 3vze it's my daily driver with about 160k miles I've recently had to put a wrench on it every week I had my water pipe bust under the intake went ahead and fixed that in the process of putting the timing belt back on I busted a hole in my radiator I ordered a new radiator put it all back together then found I had a leak in my water pump I replaced it and everything was good for a while I drove it for about 2 weeks with no issues then one day my radiator busted as I had went the cheap route when I bout the new one and got one with the plastic housing I went ahead and bought an aluminum 3 row installed it and drove about a week with no issues.well I go to get in my truck one day about a week later and it won't start I pull a fuel line I'm getting fuel pull a spark plugs ground it to the engine and I'm not getting any spark so I got a new coil and still no spark I ran the battery dead trying to crank it I went and traded out my battery for a new one being I have a 10 yr warrenty on my battery install it on my truck it cranks right up I check the oil and I've got the milky sign of death so I decided to go ahead and rip it apart and check the heads turns on it was a bad gasket thank God. I went ahead and ordered a genuine hg kit and had the heads reworked put it all back together and now I'm getting no spark my efi is good new distributor I double checked the timing on it. I believe it's my ECU but I'm not sure how to test it. I took a pic of the insides of it right where it says R823 looked a little burnt.

 

Hi.
The ECU that is used in the 4Runner is a very sturdy little guy.
They rarely go bad.
Before you lay out the big bux to replace it on a guess, I would look elsewhere firstly.
Logic thinking tells me that it is something that you did during the last maintenance action that is causing the problem.
Think about it, the engine was running during the bad gasket time you were mixing the oil and coolant, right?
Then you took it apart to replace the gaskets and have the heads massaged, right?
Then you put it together again and now it won't start because you don't have ignition spark, right?
I think that none of the actions you did made the ECU go bad.
If R823 had burned up, that spot on the circuit board would be very dark brown, or even black.
I think the cause could be in the cam, or distributor timing when you were assembling the engine.
A quick way to tell if the distributor is stabbed correctly, is look to see if the rotor is pointing at approx. 11 o'clock when cylinder #1 is at TDC
Take a look and report back.
Good luck.
Art.

 

Well it was doing it before I did the head gasket, I just happened to get it to start once when I was swapping out the battery I figured something had reset from disconnecting it. But any way I went ahead and reset my distributor it was slightly off but I'm still not getting any spark I have 12v going to the distributor with the key on. I'm really not sure what's going on. Here are some pics of how I set the distributor

 

Here is a copy of the FSM no spark troubleshooting matrix.

 

Hi:
It looks to me that the dist. is still off by 1 tooth, but no matter, it should attempt to start even one tooth off.
It could be the camera angle that gives that impression.
Does the engine even try at all?
Does it cough,or snort, or sneeze at all, or does it just lifelessly crank.
When you turn the ignition switch to the on position, does the check engine light come on? It should.
When you took the air cleaner/AFM assembly off during the take apart phase of the head gasket repair, how did you remove the rectangular plug on the top of the AFM.
There are two ways to disconnect the plug, they are:
1.) Unclip the thin wire bail that surrounds the plug which releases the plug from its socket and allows it to be removed. (correct way)
2.) Remove the two small screws that seem to logically hold the plug in and pull the plug out of the holding socket. (absolutely the wrong way).
If you used method #2, you have damaged some of the delicate internal gonads of the AFM, and the engine will not fire up until you have fixed the carnage you have caused.
You will not realize that you have caused this damage, and the plug will go right back on during reassembly, and everything will look OK from the outside.
The result of this will be eternal lifeless cranking.
Sometimes a clue will be no check engine light when the ignition key is turned to the on position.
Keep on truckin....
Wash, Rinse, Repeat, and post results.
Good Luck.
Art.

 

So I went ahead and went and got a ECU from a junkyard and she fired up, but as soon as it starts it dies Its not doing anything when I give it gas so I'm assuming it's starting from the cold start injector but it's not getting the injector pulse so I'm thinking the ground that goes to them under the plenum is not hooked up properly I remember when I put it back together I attached that ground cable to the head but I think it's actually supposed to be sandwiched on the fuel line going to the injectors.