Modest progress, everything else in the world has been keeping me busy. The sort of progress that looks like you really haven't done anything.
But the engine harness is on. The headers and crossover pipe are wrapped and bolted on 'for real', not just hanging there by a single nut. Wastegates are on, but not plumbed to boost yet. Put a throttle cable on it, verified that it opens the throttle 100% of the way. Was there something else? Maybe... Mostly waiting on a radiator to arrive now. Due to brain fade, I got one with the low pipe on the passenger side, high pipe on the drivers. And down low on the passenger side... is a turbo. That was NOT going to work, not even a little. So I had to return that and exchange it for the mirror-image version, that's still in the mail.
And the 'fix it and flip it Highlander' thing we bought from the neighbor? After finding the 30 PSI compression test, I poured a little oil down the hole and tried it again, absolutely no change. Hmmm.... that's promising. A shop had diagnosed it with a 'scored cylinder/bad piston - needs a $6K engine swap', but an unchanged wet compression test didn't support that theory. I tried a shadetree leakdown test - attaching a compressor hose (hooked to one of the 4Runers on-board-air compressors, lol) to the compression gauge hose. And then rather casually turning the motor around until it wasn't hissing out an open intake or exhaust valve. This wasn't very helpful, I heard hissing most of the time, but it was very hard to tell where it was going. But: I was NOT coming out of the PCV hose (or oil filler cap).
One last shadetree test to verify the growing consensus: I replaced the plugs on the front head and started it up with the oil cap off. No real noticeable draft from the oil filler cap. Revved it - same. Had my wife come out, put it in drive, and step on the gas some - not even then. Whatever's wrong - it isn't the cylinder/piston.
So I whipped the front head off, which really isn't all that hard. The rear head? 69.5% more of a PITA, I'm sure. But the front one is cake. And... little chunk missing off one of the exhaust valves on #2.
So yeah... the $500 'needs an engine' Highlander is starting to look a bit more profitable, with a lot less labor involved. Sweeet.
Even sweeeeter? A 2004 Highlander VVTI V6 literally showed up at Pick-n-Pull like a day later. PnP is great because they, unlike all the other local junkyards, has web-available car inventory. So we went by and snagged a good (enough) head for $65. It was even a sale weekend. Lol.