I need some help. I recently picked up a 2002 Montero with approx. 166k miles on it that needed head gaskets. While I had the head gaskets off, I had the heads cleaned and new valve stems put in and the valves re-lapped into their seats measured and pressure tested.

I installed a new timing belt, water pump, wires, plugs, valve cover gaskets and other routine maintenance stuff while I was at it. I got the vehicle running again no biggie.

After I got it running, it started stalling as usual so I took the throttle body off and took it all apart and cleaned all the passages and that fixed my odd idle issue, and its some what fixed.

Here's what I'm not able to figure out.... It's falling flat on its *** when trying to climb a hill. It has no power what's so ever. I have to floor it to make it up a small incline. I'm about to pull my hair out trying to track down the problem. I removed the catalytic converter because on one was rattling and loose and still no power.

I then checked my transmission fluid, it was over a quart over full. I adjusted my fluid level back down to where it needed to be. Problem still exists.

When trying to perform a stall test, it stalls around 1,100 RPMs and won't go any higher. It bounced off the rev limiter at around 5,000 RPMs with no load on the engine. I have no check engine light on and no idea where to start looking. It could possible be a bad throttle position sensor? But that's why I'm here.

 

I take it there is no CEL and no codes available?
Test the throttle position sensor. You need to hook up Ohmmeter to the signal wire and ground on the TPS and see if when you move the throttle plate by hand that you get an even and smooth change in Ohmmeter reading all the way through the entire range of travel. Make sure you test this in both directions (going to all the way open and going to all the way to closed). If you get a flat spot that does not respond with a reading change in any spot in the range of travel - it is a bad TPS. I would also advise to look into fuel delivery. Test fuel pressure to see if your pump is putting out enough fuel. If not, that would cause starvation under load. However, that should have set off the CEL codes.
One more thing. I'm in no way do questioning your mechanical abilities, but just in case - is it possible you plugged O2 sensors in the wrong places on the harness? That would seriously mess with the PCM's understanding of what is going on with fuel system functioning.

 

So, funny thing happens when you don't have a coil pack working. The odd thing to me was the coil pack on the far right, 3,6 was completely dead. There was no CEL, and really, the vehicle didn't feel like it was misfiring.

I picked up a coil pack and I'm going to put it on tomorrow.

Thanks for your input.

 

It is very strange that the PCM did not set a missfire code with two cylinders not working. Is your Check Engine Light comes on (temporarily) when you turn ignition ON?

 

I just passed emissions, here in GA, they do an MIL test and it does indeed work. It ended up being an ignition coil module that ends up causing coil #3 to just go bad. All I did was check for voltage at the coil pack, which was alternator voltage and ground. The ground ended reading 4.5v. Any who, I've already put $100 miles on it and it drives like a champ.