a little history on the car. it's an automatic 85 turbocoupe with 70K miles. when i bought it, it was overheating and had a blown head gasket. the overheating was a simple fan relay. the head gasket wasn't that bad at all. it would still run and drive just fine. it had plenty of power and ran like a good running 2.3 turbo should. i took it down for an afternoon and swapped the head gasket... i found out exactly why california cars suck, lol... sooo many vaccum lines. anyway, i got it all buttoned back up and reset the timing and fired it up. started right up. went to take it for a drive and it just felt like it was really under powered. it builds boost just fine, but won't go like it should.

played with the timing last night. first i played with ignition timing... no change. then i played with cam timing. i advanced it two teeth and it wouldn't even stay running... dropped it back a tooth and it ran, but ran like shit. then i took it back to one tooth retarded and it seemed like it helped a bit. so i got excited and retarded it another tooth... didn't really like it. so i went with one tooth retarded and took it for a drive. it seemed like it had a bit more power, but still no where near where it should be. this thing has be befuddled. i mean, it idles great, free revs in neutral great, and just runs great. when you put it in gear, it'll drive great and shifts great, but it doesn't seem like it's puting the power to the ground. what the hell could this be. i'm actually thinking about doing something that i havn't done in years.... take the car to a shop.

help.