The car does indeed run, although very poorly and with what seems to be a missing cylinder. I don't believe it to be running on just one cylinder, not sure if I stated that wrong....I believe it to be running well on all but the #5 cylinder.

The wires, cap and rotor are all brand new. As for the mystery oil, it's been around for a long time, long before slick 50 and all that other stuff, but serves a similar purpose. You can find it at any auto parts store, I'm sure you would recognize the bottle if you looked for it.

The plugs were new about two weeks ago, but that was before I got the timing set right so it's possible that a new set could possibly help. I plan on getting another two sets of plugs this weekend and start over with fresh ones. I am about 90% sure tho that the #5 cylinder is not firing, and I'm completely positive that it is indeed getting spark to it, so that leaves gas as the culprit.

I'd rather it be the injector causing the problem, cuz that seems like an easier and cheaper fix than a valve problem. I'm getting closer and closer.

I did take it around the block since I felt pretty confident that it would stay running. It didn't stall or even act like it was going to. Can't wait til it's got full power. I'm hoping to have it ready by the end of the year.

I will have the alternator tested before I go buying a new one, but it's going to be awhile. It's a distant second right now to the engine. I'm pretty sure it's an aftermarket one tho, it doesn't have that 23 year old original part look. It looks like it's been replaced in the last 5-10 years.

 

Sounds like you just have a stuck injector on #5 then. If you don't have much fuel left in the tank, you can run some seafoam through the fuel system... or just pull the fuel rail & see if they are all spraying properly.

 

What an absolutely logical thing to do. That's brilliant!! I'm standing too close to the forest I guess, but that would be the absolute easiest way of finding out for sure what the problem is.

I'm going to try that next. Hopefully I'll have time to do it tomorrow.

 

I'd say it's safe to say that the car is now running right, other than the manifold leak, but I'll save that for a later thread if I can't figure it out on my own.

So for anyone that runs into a similar problem, here's a quick summary.

Originally the car would not rev at all unless the CHTS was disconnected immediately after starting the car. There was a very strong odor of fuel when the car was running. Given a few miles, I could get it to about 60 mph on a flat road as long as I didn't give it too much gas. Putting the accelerator to the floor was out of the question, it would just bog horribly if I tried.

Cleaned the ECU plugs and put dielectric grease in them, did the same with the TPS sensor plug, air regulator plug, AFM plug, injector plugs, etc. Any plug I could find I cleaned and put the greases in. Replaced the spark plugs, wires, fuel filter, rotor and distributor cap. Contacts on the cap were very pitted and the rotor was pretty corroded looking. Had to adjust the timing, it was way off. The distributor was rotated fully as far as it would adjust. Now with it at 20 degrees, it's almost in the middle. After all that it would idle with the CHTS plugged in, but the engine had a miss. Replaced the #5 fuel injector and it's like a whole new engine now.


Much appreciation to everyone who helped or attempted to help, and good luck to anyone that has a similar issue.

 

So there I was thinking the car was fixed...after I replaced the injectors it idled beautifully, smooth and steady as ever. About a month after that we finally had decent weather and I went to take her for a ride. No power whatsoever. Didn't even make it 50 feet out of the garage before I had to pull it back into the garage. Messed around trying to figure stuff out for another two weeks and then said f*ck it. Let it sit til the beginning of last month, saved up money all spring and took it to a garage to let someone that knows what the heck they are doing fix it correctly.

It was in the shop for six weeks, the shop was nearly stumped and very close to giving it back to me unfixed. The dude ran a propane line into the air intake and it ran perfectly, no miss or hesitation whatsoever. New AFM, new ECU, new fuel pressure regulator, new starter, god knows what else....still stumbled at higher rpm's without the propane.

As a last ditch effort they put my old injectors in and what do you know, it ran almost perfect. Turns out that NAPA sold me injectors for a N/A model. The shop called them to cross part #'s and NAPA came up with the same injector for both turbo and N/A. NAPA cost me a whole lot of time, a whole lot of aggravation, and a whole lot of money in a repair bill. I would highly suggest not buying injectors from them.

On the bright side, the car now runs exceptionally well. Been driving it for three days now, it's got a slight stumble when it's first started but once it's warmed up it runs great. I got the car for cheap as heck to begin with, the body is in excellent shape and the interior isn't bad either, so even with the huge repair bill I don't have an obscene amount of money invested in it. All is good. I'll post some pictures once I get my camera working. Think my batteries are dead.

 

Glad to hear everything worked out for you.