hunting, no throttle response, backfire :-(

Hello all I'm one month into ownership of a 2004 v8 4.4 L322, I love it (when it's working)

Can anyone shed some light on to this problem............... Drove the ranger to work this morning, all fine. Put into park and gave the engine a bit of a rev, circa 4000rpm, nothing too serious. As the revs decreased and came back to idle the engine started hunting badly and now will barely run at all.

I have an engine safe prog warning, the engine wont rev at all, it's hunting like mad and running on 5ish cylinders. It's also popping occasionally through the airbox. If I put the car into reverse ie under some load the hunting calms down a little but still won't rev, it eventually stalls.

Other problems that have instantly happened - Brakes hardly strong enough to hold the car still when in reverse, suspension failure, trans safe mode. I suspect the fault is a result of revving the engine, but what can it be?

The RAC man plugged in his fault reader which flagged up :-

Throttle position
MAF sensor
Throttle body position

I can't believe all these systems have failed due to revving the engine.

Please, if anyone has experienced I'd like very much to hear your thoughts.

Well if it was an old rv8, I would take the battery terminal off for a few minutes to reset ECU. Would sound like its in limp mode and might be worth a try. Tbh know nowt about L322

your gearbox and suspension faults will be bought up due to your engine not running correctly

The only thing you mentioned which seems to stick out as a bit odd to me is that you say the brakes won't hold anymore. Has a vacuum hose popped off somewhere? if it's got a big vacuum leak it will make it run bad. Try tracing the hose from the brake servo back to the engine and see if somethings happened to it. Although I would have thought RAC man would have picked it up.
If you do find something and put it right the engine light "should" go out after 5 restarts. Your profile doesn't say where you are but I have Hawkeye diagnostics if you're nearby.

Oh and I would advise getting some sort of diagnostic kit for yourself if you're new to an L322. I find it kinda essential with Rangie ownership.

If the MAF or TPS have failed, these would cause misfires. Other issues likely secondary to poor running of engine / alternator.