ZDriver.com - weird engine/fuel problem

Yesterday my friend and I were working on his car. We changed the shifter and his spark plug wires. Nothing that should accentuate this problem, I don't think.

Befor the day started the car seemed to run finem except for the fact that it did not seem to have all it's power and had a intermittent "hole" in acceleration at 3000 rpms (In other words, it would slow down acceleration at 3k, then speed up again under full throttle).

Plug wires were looking really crappy so we changed those. All other tune up things were done the previous week (Cap, rotor, plugs, fuelfilter). After this the car was running fine. It started right up and idled great.

We then decided to check the timing. We let it idle for 10 minutes to let it get up to operating temperature. We turned it off, connected the timing light and tried to start it. I wouldn't turn over. Black smoke was also coming out of the exhaust as we were trying to start it. My friend thought it was fuel overloading the engine, so we unplugged the fuel pump and it started and ran very poorly. We plugged the harness back in and then stuggled to get it started again. I would barely idle. We then drove it and found that it had no power under full throttle (floor it and no acceleration happens). Lots of black smoke was coming out. The longer the car ran, the better it seemed to run. When we got back, it was idling fine. We turned it off, and then attempted to start it and it would not fire.

We then pulled the vacuume hose to the FPR and no fuel came out. However, since the vac hoses are elebenteen years old, it cracked and we were un able to ever reconnect it. It would still start and run in the same fasion as before though.

Anyone here have any ideas of what it could be?