carolinawaterfowler

This may take a minute to explain, but wanna answer all questions in this first post. I have a 1993 4wd single cab 2.4L. I purchased the truck about a year ago from a guy I used to work with, just for hunting truck and back and forth to work. Ever since I bought the truck I noticed a major lack of power. Truck runs great, drives great, has only 137,000 miles on it! But whenever you hit the gas HARD it just pretty much has no go. I know it's a 4cyl. and doesnt have much from the factory, but this is the 3rd 4wd 4cyl. toyota I have had, and there's something wrong.

I changed the spark plugs(just for the heck of it really), changed the fuel filter, checked the timing, put a K&N air filter on it, PCV valve, and removed CAT from exhaust in my struggle in trying to find what the possible problem may be. Nothing has gotten any better/ or any worse.

The information yall may need. When the guy I bought the truck from first bought the truck, I remember him raising hell about a week after saying he thought he had a blown head gasket. This was probably 3 years ago. He noticed a white/yellowish build up under the oil cap. Oil was perfect, not a thing in the oil. Just some build up under the cap. The mechanic told him, that if he wasn't seeing anything in the oil itself it probably wasn;t a head gasket, that it was just condensate build up and pretty common for toyotas. Now that I have the truck, there's still that build up under the cap. I change the oil regularly, and NEVER have seen any mixture in the oil. Always pure black. I do have to put a little coolant in the truck very very often. The truck always runs on the cold side of the temp. guage. I pretty much thought this would lead to a stuck open thermostat constantly cooling. Figured, as long as the truck never runs near the hot side, that everything would be fine. Also, whenever a passenger rides with me, after I shut the truck off and get out, he says it smells like gas outside the truck.

Things I know I need to check next. I may end up chaning the distributer and wires (truck never skips a beat), which is why I havent changed yet. May end up getting a compression test done. But just wondering if anyone else can help me along with the process to get this fixed. I drive the truck nearly everyday and have never had a single problem, but just wanna resolve this problem. Just ain't sure if it's a lack of fuel problem from tank, injector problem, or HOPING NOT a compression problem from a head gasket or something. All help is greatly appreciated fellas.