say can you do me a favor sometime and unplug the wires at the base of your dist??? not the plug wires but the little 4-pin connector just off the block. then hit the key to "run" and see if your check engine light comes on?? I dont think the dist would cause the comp failure that I'm having , but who knows...

 

HERE'S A THOUGHT,... is your distributer cap stock? I had a 1990 Mazda 323 & the damn engine would NOT accept any other brand of distributer cap other than the factory one. One brand quit after a few hrs,... the other {bosch} cut my MPG by 10MPG.
They seem to ONLY like the Mitsubishi style stock cap assy.

 

i could not find this thread for the life of me until i got the auto email...


but the scoop now is that the mazda's running great, has been for over 500 miles now... what it wound up being was two of the contacts in the mass air meter had come loose and were slightly contacting each other, which was apperently shorting the computer, and in a saftey mode the computer would not come on. found this merely by dumb luck, I hate to think what the mechanics bill would have come to after all this. but anyways soldered them back where they belonged and havent had a problem since

I do want to thank everyone who kept feeding me ideas and kept me going on new ideas... i would've quit a long time ago!

 

i had that problem for awhile too man. i have the same exact car. your car should be putting out at least 14 volts, not just 12. check your alternator and make sure. eventually my car just died because the car couldn't run off of that lack of power. but now it's fine after i fixed it. anyways, check the alternator power.