95 Tacoma 2.4L hesitation - HELP

I'm new to this forum and new to the Tacoma world! I just picked up a 95 Tacoma w/ the 2.4L. It only has 107K miles and was well maintained until about a yr ago.

Under normal driving scenarios (I'm pretty easy on it) it runs fine, although the exhaust is a bit loud. However, when I flutter the gas pedal, there is a lot of hesitation and the engine even sounds like it might cut out. One other thing that has only happened a couple times is that when I am accelerating quickly, there is what sounds like a short backfire when shifting between gears.

I changed the plugs and wires, but the long hesitation when fluttering the gas is still there. Is this normal? Is there something I can do to make it more responsive?

One thing to try as a cheap fix - Clean your throttle body.

http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/maintenance/30_V6/throttle_body/

Thanks... I'll try that next.

OK. I cleaned the throttle body (or what I could get to) and it didn't seem to make any difference. I also cleaned the MAF sensor with some electrical contact cleaner. The air filter looks a little dirty, but I've seen a lot worse. I took the filter out and ran it in my driveway to see if it made any difference and it did not.

I'm wondering if it could be the TPS or maybe a timing issue. I also have an exhaust leak from somewhere up front which may be the "slight backfire" I'm hearing. Basically, there are two symptoms...

1. When I'm idling and in neutral and just hit the gas, it get's bogged down and takes a second to recover.

2. When up shifting, there will sometimes be a faint "backfire" sound. This also occurrs if I'm in a lower gear and holding a constant spead at slightly higher RPMs (I'm guessing somewhere around 3500 since no tach on this one).

Any thoughts???

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Check your distributor cap and rotor.
Check your fuel supply (flow and pressure - pump and regulator and filter)
Check your timing
Try running some injector cleaner through your system from a full tank of gas. Chevron Techron or equivalent works pretty good for some.

Any "Check Engine" light on?

If you have time on your hands, check your cam timing. See if the chain has stretched.