Power loss on hill in 4H, manual trans.

My in laws driveway is VERY steep, starts as gravel at the bottom and becomes concrete about half way up. So the other day, I stop at the bottom, engage 4H like i normally do, and start crawling up the hill slow in 1st gear. When I get to the concrete, the truck feels like it loses all power, accelerator to the floor, no RPMs and damn near stalled. No dash lights flash. I try to gas it and pop the clutch, it doesn't move. So I switch back to 2WD and slowly crawl up the rest of the driveway. Even in 2WD the truck seemed to have no power under it, I was BARELY moving. I've never experienced this before. Next time I guess I'll try 4L..?

Anyone had this happen, explanations or suggestions??

 

Normal with a manual trans. Use 4lo to go up steep hills off-road.

 

Is the concrete portion dead straight?

 

Concrete is still steep incline

 

But no left or right turns? If you're in 4WD and try to make slow-speed turns on a grippy surface, that would give you some trouble.

 

There's no bottom end torque on the Stock tune. The later TSBs did add a bit of power, but not much. The hardware is good, just 1.5mb file is messing with you.


BTW, in 1st and Reverse, there is this BS.

About 26% torque under 4,00rpm and only about 50% above that in 2Hi and 32% in 4Hi. Easily edited to 100%.

 

Ahh.. That's annoying. How do you change that?

 

4lo anytime mod

 

That is part of the vF Tunes. If you want to get tuned, check out my Feelers thread for a local person to flash you up.

 

I am still confused about what kind of driveway requires 4wd-lo to climb? What vehicle your in-laws use to climb this epic obstacle.

 

Camry

 

It's crazy steep, has a sharp right turn about 1/3 the way up in gravel and then turns into concrete towards the top, which is still steep.. They have a Sierra and a CRV that do just fine at low speeds in 4WD. Which is why I'm shocked the Tacoma gave out like it did.

The Tacoma did just fine for about 10 or so times before, just this once it acted up. I thought maybe I was going too slow for 4H but

 

Ridgeline

 

How much gas was in the tank? Maybe you were starting to suck air due to the incline??

 

At least a half tank.

Wondering if this happens in the AT too, or if it's just a MT thing

 

This and any of the good MT tunes. Absolute NIGHT AND DAY difference. Plus consider 4.88 re-gear. You will love your truck even more.

 

Could traction control have been killing the power? You try turning it off before going up?

 

Move your in laws to Kansas, no hills, no problem.

 

First gear 6 speed manual is pretty low ratio. You sure it wasn't 4WD binding on a turn?

 

Did you notice any smoke coming-out of the exhaust when this happened? Some Taco owners have had problems with oil getting sucked into one of the cylinders when on a steep incline. If it happened you'd probably know it as from the pics and videos I've seen, when it happens there's quite a lot of smoke which comes-out of the exhaust.