I am going to give that a shot next.. hopefully it turns out to be something that simple. Logically, that would make complete sense and it’s always been in the back of my mind. But my luck, it’s not going to be that easy lol! Thank you for the input.

When does the TPS actually come in to play? Open loop? Or does it always have effect?

So I replaced ECT sensor today with no change.., didn’t think it was the issue but it was cheap and easy.

ive wondered about it being TPS.. but if tps is always in play then I would have same symptoms in open loop..
which is why I was wondering if TPS is always accounted for or not.

i did play around with tps a little today. And I’ve read that some say your idle speed will change depending on which way you move tps.. mine will temporarily go up or down and aafter a few throttle blips and it’ll always go back to 500. No matter where the TPS is rotated to. Which also makes me wonder if it’s bad. Gonna try to test it tomorrow. Looks tough to do because of location lol

another thing I’m wondering is when transmission is put into gear idle will drop down to 300-400 rpms. Is that normal?

Well PROBLEM SOLVED. It was one of 2 things.

Bad or improperly adjusted TPS.
or gummed up throttle body.

went to try a new (used) TPS I got from a friend. And decided to pull throttlebody as it’s a PITA to properly adjust TPS without pulling it. And was able to clean throttle body it was pretty gunked up. Not horribly like there was issues. But bad enough you could tell it’s never been off after 170k miles. Fired it up and it now has great power no matter the temperature. Thanks everyone for their input