I’ve noticed on my trips up to Tahoe once I start hitting the steep grades I sort of hit a throttle dead zone. I feel like I notice it more when it’s really cold out. Basically I’ll be going about 45-50mph and unless I put the pedal all the way touching the floor the rpms/speed won’t budge. Even when I do put it to the floor it downshifts and speeds up maybe 2-3mph but then goes right back to how it was. Turning the ect/od on or off doesn’t really have much effect either. Is this normal? Anything I should check?

ECT only adjusts shift points (speed) to be higher so the rpms increase between shifts allowing for faster acceleration (more power developed at higher Rs).

Now the OD is specifically designed to be used when in top 'gear' (OD), depressing the button should immediately drop the transmission into locked 3rd gear and immediately increase the rpms.

For example, in my unit on a steeper grade, when I start up it i may be traveling 70 with about 2150 rpms, when I depress the OD, I can feel the downshift and RPMS increase to around 3100-3300 (can't remember exactly but around there), it is very evident.

Then because the engine is developing much more HP and torque, it Easily begins to accelerate as I climb, it will go as fast as I want, so i have to let off the pedal pressure to hold 70. That is how is should work, anyone with other experiences?

you might want to check this little rubber part of the cable assembly? The peddle is much more responsive when the rubber grommet is not all busted up. A dead spot is kind of what I would call it... could be worth a quick look?

I’ll start with the throttle cable and see if that does anything. It definitely needs to be replaced anyways cause i have it adjusted all the way and it still has a bit of slack in it.

Yea I mean there is a very slight difference in rpms when I hit OD on/off but the speed stays the same no matter how much I press on the pedal unless I literally floor it. I only really have this problem once the grade gets really steep/very high elevation (6-7k elevation). Otherwise on most grades it’s fine and I can accelerate to 70+.

I had something very similar going on pretty much the entire time I owned my 4runner, I always assumed it was just because I run bigger tires and the engine was struggling to pull up steep hills, Id usually put the shifter in 2 when it was still an auto to make it up some of the steeper ones at a reasonable speed. Turned out it was a coil pack on its way out, however it took forever to show any symptoms other than the poor throttle response on hills, once it actually started intermittently missing and threw a code I replaced the pack and noticed a significant power increase on those hills and no longer had to put the shifter into 2

I wouldn't just throw parts at it thinking it could be a coil, but you could always pull them out and test them with a multimeter to see if they are in spec, or put a new set of wires on if it's due for those

Definitely sounds similar to my situation, I’ll test the coil packs when I get home. I agree about not throwing parts at it.

another thing to look out for is the pack might test within spec and still be bad, mine tested fine unless I had been driving for like 30+ minutes and they were nice and hot, which is when the intermittent miss would start. If that's the case with yours you might just have to leave it alone until it throws a code, or grab one from the junkyard and swap it in for one at a time to see if it gets better

That's a hot profile pic there dude.

A man's gotta eat.

I have a thread here with all coil specs for the v6 if you search for it. I never had anyone get me the 4 cylinder specs.

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