ok..finally got her running again, after the total rebuild, but the bottom end just really seams to be missing. I got the AEM gears put on with new marks, but they could posibly still be a little off. Could this be my problem? I also gutted the cat...what about the effects of that on low end power? Someone else also told me it could be the 8.8:1 compression I went with, with no turbo yet? Also the car (A/T) wont shift into "L". Could it be that I am starting in 2nd for some odd reason (wasn't like that before the rebuild)? Just have so much differnt stuff that everyone is telling me could be the problem that I don't know where to start. TIA

Everything that you mentioned could hurt your low end. Is your idle lumpy; if the timing was off the idle would lope somewhat. I don't know about the trans; I never owned an auto so I never took the time to learn about them.

When we rebuild mine, we ganked the engine out of a 95 w/ an auto and it seemed similar to the manual on the top where the linkages attach. Are you sure they are clipped to the right actuators? If the lever won't go into L, maybe they are swapped as it's just a matter of pulling them?

And a timing belt off by one tooth can cause lumpy erradic idle.

Also, if raising compression by 1 point increases hp by 4%, then dropping CR by almost 1 point will drop it close to that.

Good luck. You'll get it figured out!

My idle is a little rough, but after using the search function extensively, I'm really thinking MAP sensor. The problems i've noticed only seam to occur when my CEL is on. The keydance reveals codes 12,13,55. 13 says map sensor and i have been experiencing a fuel cut or something of the sort at 4k rpms and a few other symptoms shared by others with map sensor problems. I plan on trying to replace the sensor this weeekend, but wondered if anything else could be causing the sensor to read incorrectly (such as vacuum leak or something???). The wierd part is that the CEL only comes on if I let the car die at a stop light or something, which happens everytime if I dont keep my foot on the gas to keep my idle at around 900 rpms. I know i need to fix the idle or whatever so that i don't have to rev it up while I'm stopped, but why would killing it cause the cel 13? Is there another underlying problem that I'm missing?