so it turns out the culprit was in fact voltage. after digging around my fuse box i jump in the car to go buy myself a dual connector(to wire the coil from a new 12v power source) and the car feels good. real good. so i give it full throttle just out of morbid curiosity and no break up what so ever. she's rippin! so i get home and test power at the coil and what was about 8 before is now just under 12. i can only presume that a hoopty connection or grounding or somewhere got settled when i was digging around. voila.
thanks for all the feedback once again
jp
