looking at buying a 98 12v and before i pull the trigger and scoop her up i was having a question about what i noticed in the test drive. while leaving the lot i shifted from 2nd into third (NV4500) and hit the accelerator and noticed two things.. 1) the pedal seemed really really stiff.. is this normal or just an adjustment that was made to the pedal? 2) i started third and dropped down to about 1200 RPMs and i noticed the truck seemed real sluggish all the way up into 2200 or so, i have a 1st gen that im driving and i know they are setup differently but my 1st gen doesn't seem that sluggish even before the pump tampering.. is this also normal or could the two things be related.... i know these could be hard things for you guys to imagine but if it doesn't sound normal please speak your peace

 

It almost sounds like it has a shut off solenoid not opening up all the way, creating a stiff pedal and sluggish power. Next time you drive it, manually check that the solenoid is up all way.

On both my 95 and 98 12v's, the solenoids have not gone bad yet, but the pull and hold relays have gone bad on both.

 

The throttle on my truck used to be VERY hard to push... it turns out that it was due to a frayed cable. It seems likely that this could be the issue here, too.