see if you can have your wires ohmed out, that will tell you right away

 

You guys would not believe the mess in wrongly connected and non-connected vacuum lines they have left after replacing the engine. I will try to work on that in a couple of days when I have time. I looked at another guy's car who has the same model but 95 instead of 97. After that, then I can look further so I don't waste money on parts until all else is covered.

 

rlucky, I had to reconnect a bunch of vacuum hoses that were incorrectly connected and others that weren't connected at all. In the process, I noticed one of the hoses could not be reconnected because the place to connect it to was broken off. The piece where the hose went was on the part called the resonance chamber. It's that black plastic reservoir looking part right before the firewall at the top of the engine. It connects to the intake. Two hoses go into it but only one could be connected due to the break I mentioned. I got a replacement tank from a junk car. When I removed mine, oil poured out of it but it's only supposed to hold air/fumes. I asked a mechanic/neighbor what he thought. He said that oil is probably passing through the piston rings. He asked me to remove the oil cap and if compression was coming out of there then that was proof the engine was in bad shape. He also said I could check for wet spark plugs. I only checked the oil cap but that was all I needed. Compression was coming out of there and the air that came out was spitting sprinkles of oil all over me and the engine. What I thought might be an easy fix may require a whole new engine. I will post this on the "other" forum website too.

 

UPDATE and I will re-post this everywhere I saw a post with people having similar problems:
Ok, upon turning the car on, my car would sputter, try to stall, sometimes just turn off, etc. It would then get better as the car picked up speed. As soon as I had to stop and go again it would do it again. I had to wave cars on. I put a computer scanner to the connector to see why the Check Engine Light was on and it showed P0100. That code means MAF Circuit Malfunction. If you have that code and those same symptoms, my friend, you have just found the answer. It is the Mass Air Flow sensor. I replaced it and the problem went away 100%. It is a dealer only part and costs over $200 so look for a used one. I know this is not going to help those that don't get the code but it's going to help someone that has the same problem. The little filament ,or whatever it is, was completely missing from the very center of the sensor. It's like a little "feeler" that senses the air and sends the info to the computer. The fact that the computer would not put some default adjustment really annoys me. The car should not become almost undriveable. No more Check Engine Light (CEL).