Well I did something really stupid today. I decided to see if the wheels would wobble offroad road because I'm going to my dads this weekend and it doesn't look like i'm going to be able to get my truck in on the lift at my buddies shop to replace the pitman arm. Well it did fine but I decided to take one of the trails through and I slid of into the ruts. I stuck rocks, wood, shoveled all I could and ended up only 2 feet more from where I started and this was at about 4:30 so I started making phone calls. I got ahold of my buddy Joe to bring his Xterra with bald tires to pull me up but he just got me up about 2 more feet then he got buried to the diff. So we had my buddy Alex come up in the explorer he got joe out but i was so wedged up on stuff he couldn't pull me out. I was sitting on my control arms, frame, oil and trans pan, drive shaft and my rear tires were hanging off and we went at it till about 7. My buddy Luke had just got off at work and headed up in his 09 GMC Seirra 2500HD with the lift kit and mud tires and ripped me out and I headed home. On the way home I noticed It barelly wanted to do the speed limit. I laid into it a bit and it bogged and the check engine light flashed but went away then came back as a solid light when I got to the hills by my house. Peddle all the way to the floor made me lose speed. Gently feathering the gas peddle allowed me to keep 20mph and when I got to O-riellys they told me maybe I knocked a plug wire lose or my rotor and cap needs to be replaced or cleaned. So my question is what do you think is wrong with my poor old girl.

 

"...when I got to O-riellys they told me maybe I knocked a plug wire lose or my rotor and cap needs to be replaced or cleaned. ....."

To start, I would not go to that Orleys any more....

What was the code...and it wasn't "a plug wire loose." No such code.

In the daylight, pop the hood and start looking under there and underneath to see what you may have jacked up. How is your plenum? Have you checked it? Do you have a cat on it? If so, see if it is clogged.

 

The first thing I'd do at the end of that story is look for a crushed exhaust pipe or muffler. If nothing is crushed, I'd whomp (not too hard) on the catalytic converter to determine if the guts have broken loose.

PS: Don't run it in that condition for long. If the exhaust is restricted, the engine is at risk. The heads on these engines are prone to cracking when overheated by restricted exhaust.

 

+1 on obstructed exhaust... betcha crushed or clogged it..

 

Have you looked underneath the beast yet? Heck, maybe you got mud packed all around the driveshaft, in the wheels, etc.

 

I also had same problem in my 98 dodge 4x4 with 5.2l try pulling front o2 sensor before the catalatic converter mine was pluged up n I just got all my power back n if that don't work, try the pick up coil inside the distributor.

 

Well I got a new cap and rotor today and put that on. Looking at my old one I'm amazed it was running the thing was so worn out it hadn't even been making contact it must have just been arcing between the terminals but there was a good amount of mud inside the dist. I wired everything up on my new cap and rotor and it did the same thing started and idled 100% fine but anything beyond 1500rpms it moaned whined and had no desire to rev higher. My buddys dad said that something could have dripped down clogging something that controls advance and that sounds like my problem seeing as the truck is only at 41k miles but I have no clue there is really no space to do distributor work on this thing they should have put it on the front of the motor if you ask me because Ive spent hours planking on my engine trying to lay flat enough to get some sort of a view of the distributor with no success. I don't know those I'm frustrated and am having a problem dealing with this my dad should be able to help me tomorrow to hopefully my low mileage 98 doesn't need to go to the graveyard because if its something like a cat I won't be able to afford it.

 

Like I said pull oxygen sensor before cat, o2 sensors run for 50 bucks if u break it, my guess is you'll regain your power

 

I went through the same thing, I replaced distributor, cap, rotor, plugs, wires, fuel pump, pickup coil, an some to find out after 800 dollars of parts it was my cat, you could just cut the cat off and streight pipe it.

 

I just recently cut my catalytic converter off, did the plenum about 10+ months prior, and so far it's had the single biggest effect on power then everything else I did (double roller timing chain, new plugs, wires, cap & rotor)

It would be worth the time to take out the front O2 sensor to see if the engine runs any better.