Ok, so I have been trying to get my 89 s10 4.3 4x4 to stop bogging down and loosing power. Here is the history of the vehicle. I am not a mechanic, but I am pretty a pretty good DIYer and can do most jobs that involve basic skills, tools and elbow grease.
I bought the truck about 2 years ago. It always ran pretty good, passed inspection with no problem, but seemed to hesitate a little when stepping on the gas (ie to merge into traffic) and lacked power on hills. The truck has a 2" body lift and 31" tires, so at first I kinda thought that the larger tires would slow it down a bit. It never really had any problems, I always just wished it had a bit more pep. So over the past 2 years I have slowly replaced most of the sensors and little parts that are prone to cause problems. Yes I checked the codes, keep getting a 32 I believe. But I figured at about $30-50 a part if I slowly tried to replace them during quarterly oil changes it would keep it pretty inexpensive and I might get lucky.
Everything was going great, love the truck. But over the past month or so, the problem has just gotten worse. To the point now where I feel the harder I step on the gas the slower the truck goes, especially at low speeds. If I have to climb a hill from a stop, often I have to drive in the shoulder because she just wont get about 30mph until I get on flat ground. I hear what sounds like a vacuum leak especially at low speeds and with the pedal lightly depressed. As I play with the pedal the vacuum sound seems to match the pedal. I have inspected all of the visible vacuum hoses (replaced a few) but cannot find a leak. The original air box was replaced before I bought it with a 10" KN Open Air Filter sitting on top of the motor. When I try and isolate the sound under the hood, all I hear is the air rushing through the TBI, the vacuum leak can really only be heard while driving in the cab. So I am not sure if there is a hose that I cannot find or see, or that the sound I am hearing while driving is just the intake and the sound is unrelated to my problem.
Some days I feel it runs better than other, but I can't really isolate any conditions that it performs better in, and it might just be in my head. I don't really notice a difference when it is warm or cold. She Idles fine and drives fine at light throttle and highway speeds. Say I am on a flat road going 50 she drives fine, not prob but as soon as I start up a hill, I start to slow down. So I step on the gas a little, she starts to growl real loud, but slows down more. As I approach the top of the hill and let my foot off the gas it starts to pick back up again.
Seeing how the weather was nice I thought I'd give her a tune up and see if that would help, so I have all new plugs, wires, cap, button, fuel filter, pcv. However it had no affect on performance. I have an appointment for my mechanic to look at it later in the week, but it would be nice if I could figure out what was wrong myself. As I mentioned before I have replaced most of the typical parts that go, most of which were original or in poor condition when I changed them
So over the past 2 years I have replaced the
02 sensor tps sensor map sensor coolant temp sensor Replaced the 160 thermostat which it came with, with a 180 (I know stock is 195, please dont flame me about that have already been through that) The fuel pump I was told was replace right before the guy sold it too me but I haven't verified that, nor checked fuel pressure. (I have ran out of gas twice since buying it, but not recently)I have run a bottle of HEET through the tank see if there may be water in the gas, and then replaced the fuel filter. I have Amsoil Power Foamed it, as well as run some Chevron Techtron through it since I have owned it.
The only things I can think of left are. I had a radiator crack over the summer on the drivers side and it was leaking coolant for a while, right over the EEC cansiter. So maybe some how that is contaminated. Anyway to check without just replacing?
The Cat converter is clogged. It doesn't glow red but I havent' checked any temps around it.
The fuel pump is bad.
Loss of compression or bad valves.
Some sort of tranny problem.
If anyone has any suggestions or advice I would greatly appreciate it. I apologize for the essay but thought I would give as much info as possible. Any Ideas? vacuum hoses I missed? Thanks