I'm thinking it's the intake.

I never really noticed this before until now. I drive alot of hills and yeah, I don't floor it going up hills but sometimes the speed of traffic is a little more than 50-55. So I'll kick it in a little so im maybe doing 65 to stay at a steady speed, and I'm around 4000RPMS, the engine is pushing and usually it'll kick in and shift but it's staying around 4000RPMs+ at only 65mph. If I take my foot off the gas to let it go back down, and then try gassing again, it'll do the same thing, it won't like... Downshift... So ,Finally when I'm done climbing the hill and I'm going down, it takes awhile, but it'll finally shift and drop to the appropriate 2.8/3k RPMS.

I know it's an automatic and thats what they do, lack of control makes the driving experience a little blah sometimes, and I'm not trying to speed up hills, but like I said I was just trying to kick it into the next gear to get up it faster than 50-55mph. Obviously, as soon as flat ground turns into a hill you're going to have to push it a little more, physically stepping on the pedal a little more so that you don't drop down to like 40mph and slow everyone up. Not sure how "normal" that is but I never really noticed it doing this before...

Could it be something with my intake? I checked it and all the sensors and stuff is on tight. I put electrical tape on the sensor, moreso around the edges to seal it (its okay, I'm not trying to impress anyone with my engine bay). Any ideas would be great? =) thanks

 

It sounds like your car is doing what it's supposed to. It downshifts to 3rd when it needs more power to maintain speed. If you want to go faster, just give it more gas. Max HP is at 6,000 RPM. With the intake, it should rev pretty freely past 4,000 RPM.

An intake in the xB sacrifices some low RPM power at the gain of higher RPM power (starting about 3,500 - 4,000 RPM). There's no point in having one if you don't regularly get the engine above 4,000 RPM. Better to have the stock airbox and maybe a TRD or K&N drop in filter.

 

Understandable. I knew I was sacrificing a little bit of low end, I didn't spend alot on it so I figured I'd put it in to see how I like it.

I suppose what I didn't say is that, yes, around 4000 RPMs I can really hear my intake sucking in air. It's just strange because it FEELS and SOUNDS like it wants to shift but it doesn't. I AM going uphill but it was just an observation.

I get a lovely boost on the highway with my intake so I'm not dissatisfied with it as I do not see any downfalls, I'm getting the same mileage or better than I have before.

I just thought it was strange the other day when I was climbing the hill, I was going faster and faster as I was giving it more gas but it didn't want to shift, I was just wondering if that was normal. =)

 

So ur having a problem downshifting goin up a hill? Sorry wasn't able to follow ya to well. If u can speed up before u start to incline its usually better so u can stay in gear n not to have to down shift. If u were gently applying the gas as goin up hill n it didn't downshift then the car sensed that it wasn't necessary to downshift in order to go up hill. If u really wanted to downshift all u should have done was floor it really fast to get it to kick down then back off to upshift. The car should have downshifted with more than 50% throttle input. I've noticed toyota 4cylinder autos r very twitchy n like to downshift alot n gm trannies don't downshift for sh*t. That's y I went with the stick.