What a freaking year it's been!!!

I have researched and researched this issue, had to replace the steering rack (found a great video on YouTube that made that job not as hard as it probably could have been and also BIG props to The Rack Doctor for the reman rack), had to replace the entire front suspension ("upper" ball joints - don't fight it and just go ahead and pull the whole spindle off the truck, put it in a vice, and use a 19mm socket to beat it out from the back (trust me this will save you so much heartache - there just isn't enough room to swing a hammer at the correct angle with it installed on the truck) and axles (no axle/cv joint issues, but did have ripped boots, so while I was in there doing the suspension, and 100k miles on them, why not) and also replaced my expansion tank, and last night, I fixed my problem.

I'm not totally sure what my issue was, but it was one of two things:

side note - ((***I left this out of the original post, but it could be a significant driver of this issue: originally, I snapped my eccentric shaft sensor when doing the driver side valve cover/timing chain gaskets to eliminate my smoke issue after extended idle (the Go-Go-Gadget Smokescreen) -- this is NOT a valve seal issue, DO NOT let anyone convince you that it is. The issue is fixed because they change the gaskets that are causing the vacuum leak that is causing the issue, but you've overkilled the repair!!! And being the cheap SOB that I am, I ordered an aftermarket sensor off of Amazon.***))


1) In the past year of research, one of the things I came across was that one of the springs popping off of the intermediate levers could cause a misfire (had an intermittent misfire code on cylinder 5). I had put the repair off because of how much of a PITA getting the valve cover off was, and that if I used Sport Mode, I could overcome the hesitation, and my truck would still run like a scalded dog down the highway, but finally decided it was time to crack it open and figure this out once and for all. The springs were all in place, so I was kind of bummed being back at square one. Since I had the cover off, my wife and I re-discussed the possibility of it being the Amazon.com eccentric shaft sensor, and I went ahead and ordered a new OEM sensor from FCPEuro.com (not a shameless plug for a vendor, but in the past year, these guys have been GREAT, and had the parts available that I needed and I'm just passing them along as a kind gesture). Along with this change, I also -

2) did something different with the servo when I installed it. I'm thinking part of my original issue came about when I was doing the valve cover gasket, and when I removed the 4 bolts holding the servo in, it jumped out... I had not "unwound" it before unbolting it. When I replaced it, I wound it back into the valve train, and I have had acceleration problems ever since (until last night). When I reinstalled it last night, I just put it into the hole, then pushed it down to put it under tension, rather than screwing it in. I would say total travel of the servo motor was approximately 1 1/4" until it was touching the mating surface of the spacer. I then bolted it down while under that tension.

Buttoned it all back up, took it for a test drive, and it worked. HOLY CRAP IT WORKED!!!!!!!!! I can mash the gas starting from a stand still, I can mash the gas and kick in passing gear, I have no hesitation at all under heavy acceleration anymore.