Weak performance

Gentlemen, good morning. My 95 2.7l taco looses speed going up hill on major highways. At first I was thinking it’s the miles, but I’m not buying it. And then driving my wife’s 2.4l KIA has got me thinking I can get some of that power back. It has a lot more get up and go then my truck.
Looking for ideas on what to check and replace to get it back where it was in its prime. Truck runs great, idles good, not missing. Thanks in advance!

 

The KIA probably weighs half of what the Tacoma does, never gonna have much get up and go with these trucks. Are you down shifting? My 3.4L needs to downshift to get up plenty of hills.

Otherwise people talk about checking and dialing in your valve clearances with the 4 cylinder Tacomas. Probably good thing to look into.

 

What maintenance has been done? Any check engine lights?

Fixing a burnt valve made my 3RZ a whole new engine, downshifting on the highway is fairly rare.

 

Is the loss of power something that is gradually getting worse or has it suddenly gotten worse? Or perhaps its always been that way?

More info on your truck. How many miles are on it? Is it lifted? What size are the tires? Is it an auto or a manual trans?

 

How many miles on the truck? Does it burn oil or have you noticed any loss of coolant? A compression test may be in order if there's not a glaringly obvious cause of this "weak performance".

Keep in mind if this truck is new to you, maybe you just have unrealistic expectations for how it should perform. Even the 3.4 v6 1st gens ain't fast (in stock form at least)

 

@0xDEADBEEF - there is a check engine light from the exhaust system I just cleaned up(two big leaks and a bad cat) Man I might need to do a compression test. I need to reset it to see if it stays gone. Do you know what pressure I’m looking for when I do test it?

@Digiratus & @Red_03Taco it’s been this way since I got it. At first I was thinking it’s just a little 4 banger but the more I drive it, the more I’m thinking there might be a performance issue. 33s w/ a two inch lift, standard tran 185k miles, doesn’t burn through oil at all.… I don’t see new plugs and wires doing much it’s not missing. I will do a compression test. Unrealistic expectations is very possible. But I’d like to mess with it anyways ya know. Any suggestions on possible “culprits” to a problem that might not be there… it’ll give me something to do while sweating my balls off in this Texas heat.

 

Unless your truck has been regeared, its not all that surprising its a bit of a dog. The 33s are killing the power levels of the 2.7L. That alone can explain what you are feeling. An easy fix for more power would be to go with smaller tires. 31s would make a big difference in that direction.

 

Bro those 33s make me happy though hahaha. It was the same before the bigger tires anyways. Maybe I’ll put a supercharger on it and see where life takes me. IDK.

 

Yeah, I get it. Maybe a regear is the answer. Don't sell the idea short. Certainly a way to get the power back.

 

I'm willing to bet it's all those tires just bogging you down. A compression test will basically confirm or deny that though. I'd say it's worth doing and if it's low, then you can try to correct that and should see a performance improvement.

But more than likely the compression #'s comes back normal, and you then have to decide between living with it, regearing, supercharging, or tire size reduction.