Would you cycle the gear?

"Richard Kaplan" wrote:

For example, the POH for most single-engine piston airplanes says to land as
quickly as practical after an engine failure.

As if you have a choice?

But what should you do if you
have a partial engine faillure? The correct response as far as I am
concerned in my simulator is to immediately climb regardless of any prior
ATC clearance or instructions and I would venture to believe that most
pilots would agree with this, even though I am aware of no POH which
includes this in the published procedure.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here, and ask why? The obvious
answer is "altitude is your friend", so you want to get as much of it as
you can while you still can. And, I certainly agree that in a situation
like this, I'll do whatever I think is best and let ATC fend for
themselves. But...

If there's something mechanically wrong with the engine, might adding
power for a climb make things worse?