I bought this truck a year ago w 106k miles
right now it has 118k miles it is a
1997 ranger xlt 5spd manual 2.3 4cyl sohc

The problem started as being a random issue about a month ago where I wouldn’t be able to accelerate and it would chop really bad, sometimes backfire really bad, would also idle rough randomly
sometimes would run just fine(until recently)

when this happened I could bounce the revs with the clutch in and it would revive it sometimes but would struggle very hard to rev, until randomly it’ll just kick in and start reving ok, it would usually top out around 3-3500 rpm’s and start to chop really bad and not accelerate any more

usually once I slow down again and speed up it happens
it progressively got worse until now it just stalls in my driveway after it warms up and is undriveable


i did a tune up when I first got the truck and cleaned up a lot of the truck had a couple codes like lean code and what not and got a little parts crazy and threw some parts in that fixed those codes

The parts I did were:
Egr valve, dpfe sensor, dpfe hoses, O2 sensors
purge valve, pcv valve and grommet,
MAF sensor, air filter, fuel filter and lines
Thermostat, heater core valve, camshaft position sensr
All Spark plugs and wires, coil packs,
Battery and terminals, accessory belt, IAC valve
Cleaned throttle body

There is also what seems to be an exhaust leak which I don’t think would be a problem but it’s from where the exhaust pipe meets the exhaust manifold.
picture at very bottom -

I did have a cat delete done but the cats were barely clogged (about 5 months ago) long before this became an issue, although it never really ran great it was running pretty good at the time, though did always have something about it i just couldn’t point out.

I did have a p1401 yesterday but changed the dpfe hoses and it went away but still idled really rough once it warmed up until it stalled, no code after resetting though

I did a vacuum test I read about where I unplugged the iac valve connector while it was idling and it tried to stall immediately
(meaning there is no issue with vacuum) atleast I read

but what’s strange is when I plugged it back in right after it would go up to probably like 1300 rpm’s slowly come down to around 900 and actually idle pretty smoothly
Normally it would just surge really bad until it stalls at idle and I wouldn’t be able to rev it, it would just backfire really bad and if I tried to give it gas it would struggle and the revs would kind of fluctuate until it stalls
but after unplugging and replugging the iac while it’s running seems to make it idle better once it’s plugged back in and I can actually rev it up

any help greatly appreciated




Anything anyone??