Long story short: I've been chasing an issue that's causing the truck to have no power in its lower RPM bands. It feels if it sputter when stepping on the throttle. On a flat road I cant get over 65mph. I had replaced everything except a new TPS, so I thought maybe the TPS spring was sticking.

I ordered a new TPS and a multimeter. I followed the instructions on LCE (obviously not well enough). My Ohms readings were low but within spec, so I put the TB on. I think I was getting about 3.97 at WOT. I started it and it was acting a little weird, but once it got warm it started knocking really bad! Unplugged the TPS and its still knocking. Put the timing light on it and timing is jumping all over the place. This thing has never knocked.

Is this all due to the TPS not being correct? I'm really at wits end because this is at the end of a code 52 chase that still isn't resolved. Honestly, I just want it running decent again for hunting season.


1992, 3VZ,5MT, 250,000 miles.

 

The knocking sounds like you still have some knock sensor issues .

Maybe a timing issue you are jumping T to E1 to check the timing.

Might be worth pulling the valve cover and taking a peek at the timing chain.

The Throttle position sensor should not cause your timing to jump around though a confused ECU might seeing a changing knock sensor signal.

 

Thanks for the reply, I lived in Wyoming for a bit and miss it all the time.

I do have T to E1 jumped. I think the ECU is just confused. Timing was set prior to taking the TPS off. I had been driving it since it put it back together after changing the knock sensor and it was running good, minus code 52 still coming back, but lacked even more power in the low rpm band than before, sluggish when throttling, and hunting for idle.

I tried setting the TPS again today and while it wasn’t knocking it was wanting to stall and misfiring unless I gave it gas.

I’m about half tempted to get someone to do a 3.4 swap on it.

 

Do the swap yourself trying to trouble shoot a 3.4 swap someone else did with no notes can be a nightmare

 

this assumes the OP has a 22re. not specified in the post, so who knows? heck, we don't even know the make, model or year. could be the 3.slow 3vze, but that would be a belt, and the valve covers are a bit more work; however, checking the timing belt is super easy on a 3.slow.

 

It’s a 3.0, I thought I put that in the post. My bad. I’m pretty familiar with doing timing belts on the 3.0 and 3.4 but I just thought it would be an odd coincidence for it jump time when it was set 10BTC prior to fooling with the TPS.