Okaaaay.
Major update, which should close this thread off, but I'll start a new one for the new problems.... It's a long post, but worth it if you're a real sadist, and like to see bad things happen to nice guys!

Mark came over to help me out. (If there's a CEG award for 'above and beyond the call of duty', he deserves it!) I hadn't done anything wrong so far as he could tell. We futzed around for a while, coil off, coil on, wiggled the cable (jiggled the handle, etc) and nothing.

Then, we noticed a little connector near the battery attached to a large plastic shield, which looked like it belonged over the positive connector (the big flat one at the side of the battery). We put that back on, and hey presto, it started (yaay)! We tried to get it to fail, but it wouldn't, and it started every time. We wondered if maybe the little black connector was part of the PATS syste, and that was what was stopping the sparks from firing.

So we talked about the other preventative stuff I should do (full UIM clean new O2 sensor, since I have it anyway, and it was a steal at $60, change the Waterpump impeller for a metal one) and then the car could be sweet.

But that's the good stuff.

I wanted an opinion on the car generally, and we took it out for a spin. Hmmm, he said, the tranny seems jerky. Maybe a sensor. $30, no biggie. Further into the test, he says hmm, it's slipping quite a bit. Likely that's the mid-range power loss you're having. Then he revs it quite hard (though no redline, only to about 4500-5000 revs, and it goes nowhere. Literally!

He coaxed it in 1 (ATX, remember), feathering the gas, and we crawl at 10-20km back to my house. The tranny seems fubar!

It's under warranty, and last week the car had the flywheel gear ring replaced, cuz the old one was chewed up. Seems real coincidental that the car hasn't done 400 clicks since I got it back, and right at the top of the post (all those pages ago) I said there were a few clunks and knocks.

Either they didn't reassemble it right, or the tranny is toast, but either way, I'm gonna fight this with the warranty people.

Oh, some good news. I figure once this is done, the car will be a known quantity to me now, so I'm gonna keep her, and (maybe with the help of one or two of you guys) do some fixes, then keep this baby for as long as I can.

I'm out now, it's late and I'm tired. I'll start a new post about the warranty troubles (if anyone's interested)

Cheers,
T

You guys rock.