That's shedding a little light on what I'm sensing - maybe it's in the Diamante cam profile. I haven't yet tried adjusting the throttle cable, but I will.

A couple of times I've noticed that with the transmission in 3rd gear and almost at the O/D shift point..... if I give it some throttle, it up-shifts to O/D quickly - just the opposite of what I want.

Here's an interesting article that suggests 25% x P(fly), or 25% of flywheel power for a 4WD A/T............ very generic assumption, but if I use the 143HP of the 3.0L SOHC engine, that would suggest 36HP loss, not counting the u-joints and the rest of the driveline:

Understanding Horsepower

Frank