Have been having a flat spot during acceleration that I haven't been able to figure out. I tried all the obvious fixes including new spark plugs and a knock sensor, which needed changing anyway. Had good results with those, but the slight surging kept coming back and was annoying. I was thinking the TPS or other sensors were getting worn out. The fix I found was to lube the throttle cable with Tri-Flow lubricant, which has Teflon in it. I normally use it to lubricate the cables on my road bike. The results have been incredible. There is now no surging during acceleration, and the automatic trans seems to shift better. My guess is that having a smooth throttle cable makes the TPS work more consistently, which evens out the acceleration and shifting. It may be worth a try if you have similar issues.

 

Tri-Flow, eh? Anybody Else tried someting like this?

 

yea i had/have similar issues. cleaning out the TB worked a bit, i noticed a difference, but there is still a "flat spot" at the top of 1st and the bottom of 2nd. im going to get some plugs and i guess ill try knock sensor but the mechanics around me insist that the intake manifold has to come off entirely to reach it. thats gonna cost at lesat 200 by itself. im tempted to print out the write-up and bring it in to them....the half that isnt lazy is stupid....

 

new plugs and checking for a KS ghost code as well as TB/IM/IACV cleaning are all good ways of addressing this issue. I've had all of that done and they've had a noticeable impact on the overall performance. I've recently tightened the throttle cable, 'cause there was like an inch of play. I guess my next step would be to try this method out

 

I love it when automatic transmissions surge like that... maybe i am just weird...

 

It's worth a try. Everything else on my car checked out fine, so this lube did the trick. I guess the cable is bound to not work as well after 10 years, so it needed a little help.

 

how exactly are you getting the triflow in there all the way?

 

yea i am also interested to know. please tell

 

I just put it on the exposed cable where it attaches to the throttle body, then floored the accelerator pedal and released and repeated several times to make sure it worked itself into the housing. It doesn't take much. I also put a few drops where the cable attaches to the throttle body. I've never put anything on the cable before since throttle cables generally don't need lubrication, but this stuff works very well. I did it last weekend and I'm still impressed how much difference it is making...not just another one of those fluke things you "think" is working for a while, then reverts back to the initial state. Had the car out on an interstate today for the first time since I lubed the cable, and I'm able to hold a speed with much less throttle modulation, so it's even making a difference there.

 

hm. i see so it doesn't seem like its going all that far into the cable but some is better than none i guess. you could probably un-attatch the cable from the throttle body and hold it up to pour some down into the tube.

 

you don't need to take out the intake manifold, trust me, I took it out on the first max that i replaced the knock sensor, then I read somewhere in the stickies about getting to it from the side, after that, i've done about 5 maxima knock sensors with out removing the intake manifold, took me 30-45 minutes for the whole job.

 

It really doesn't take that much lube to get the results I did..doing the ends seems to work fine.