timing...

Do you live in an emssions testing area/state? Having unhooked vacuum ports sounds like an instant fail on visual to me.

I would like to disagree with the statement about fwd cars being hard to work on. Some of the newer stuff is a walk in the park compared to some carb equipped cars. From about 1980 and newer carbs were a nightmare of pollution controls and vacuum hoses going in all directions. Many newer car have easy to access parts that are designed to last longer. I bet I could have my injectors off my accord just as fast as I could pull the carb on my valiant. 105k mile plug intervals and plug wires that don't go bad. I think my accord has 5 vacuum hoses and they are all short and easy to trace. This is what the engine looks like in it and as you can see it is nowhere near as busy you might expect.http://images.gtcarlot.com/pictures/40737434.jpg