IIRC the F4F Wildcat was replaced by the 2,000 hp F6F Hellcat. Jap pilots didn’t know what hit them.
There was an excellent episode of "Dogfights" that dealt with the dawn of the Hellcat. Early on, the Zero pilots would let the Wildcat pilots try to outclimb them knowing that the Wildcat would stall and the Zero would simply follow them down with guns blazing.
In one of the Hellcat's first battles a Zero attempted this well tried trick only the Hellcat kept going up, and up, and up...until the Zero stalled and started tumbling. The Hellcat rolled over and machine gunned the Zero all the way to the water :-)
Everything had changed.