My badass truck is wheezing. Help diagnose?

my meticulously maintained ‘00 2.7 4x4 ex cab w/ 320k is doing something odd.

I swamped it last year pulling a 24 ft 8 cyl boat out of a sandbar. water in the cab up to the stereo. Air intake was dry the whole time, it stayed running and drove away. (Of course- it’s a Tacoma.)

Next day I noticed it surging at idle- felt like the butterfly in the intake was bouncing or something, not sure. Ran fine, just surged between 1-2.2k when not in gear. Drove it like that for a while, hoping it would dry out or whatever. It didn’t. Eventually I ran a can of sea foam top end cleaner through it. Smoked like crazy, really wild. Idle evened out some, not totally. Slowly, it’s been developing this other symptom: when I start her she wheezes. I don’t know how else to describe it. It sounds like she’s a smoker struggling to get enough air, sucking dry until she fires up. Usually only a second or two. there’s power loss as well when she’s running, doesn’t pull with that ferocious, white-knuckle power that 4bangers are so well known for.

Ran another can of sea foam through the top end. Way less smoke, no effect on performance.

Very minor surging now, maybe 0.1, 0.2k. Wheezing and power loss still there.

Anybody run into this? Any idea what’s going on? Tempted to just replace the throttle body, but I don’t want to just throw money at it blind....

 

"It's dead, Jim"


J/K. Do you think you may have a vacuum leak?

 

No MIL on? Sounds like a vacuum leak and maybe a bigger one like in the big intake tube or something

 

Sounds similar to the issue I just posted about. I have tried and tried to fix mine and I have basically replaced everything except the throttle body. Still the same problem continues.

 

first thought... I am thinking that all of your emission devices on the top of the fuel tank are shot
second is your charcoal canister is soaked with water and is shot.
third is your grounds are rusted
fourth the electrical connector for the fuel pump on the top of the tank is rusted to hell.

if I understand the story it ran great for a while but later on she started to act up. Sounds like rust/corroded connectors to me.