OK, I am Drews brother Darryl. We rebuilt the motor as stated. Purchased brand new cylinder head stock specs inspected by two machine shops for good measure.
So far I have done the following:
I have calibrated the tps, checked for vacuum leaks numerous times, bov is recirculated & tested, checked iscv but not with a meter (rain!!). grounds cables are all new and there are now 4 of them, grounded the head to chasis, block to chasis, head to block, motor mount to chasis. All is good.
No boost leak check yet. We are not building any boost according to the boost gauge (aftermarket) we still need to take it out and seat the rings. I don't want any positive pressure until then.
One issue we did have was setting ign. timing. After setting the no.1 piston to tdc on the compression stroke with cam gears aligned with the marks on the timing cover and crank set a 0*. Double check the intake lobe was facing upwards looking through the oil filler cap. Everything dead on!!! checked multiple times!!
Next jump terminals te1 -e1. Break out the timing light slip the inductive pickup over the no.1 "hotwire". proceed with setting the btdc. I realized the cps was off since I was getting min. adjustment when rotating the cps, after inspecting the cps postion I was off a tooth or so. The max. adjust we get now after aligning the cps properly is btdc is 8* then it runs 10* with the terminals te1-e1 not jumped. Cps looks dead on now looking at the rotor and pickup. I have checked timing several times to see if the belt skipped a tooth.
I just went out and unplugged the tps. I read it should idle up to 1500-2k. Now the idle surges up and down from 300-550 rpm. Bad tps? why/how would calibration be accurate? With it plugged in it will hold 750 then starts surging 900-400 rpms.
Also regarding the pcv hose to the intake, is the valve in the hose or is it built into the TB? we are using heater hose from the parts store we need to order a few more factory hoses from the dealer. I will feel stupid if this is the problem.
I will break out the meter tonight and check alternator, ign coils, igniter, iscv.
Edit: yes ecu has been reset. still no codes. No 15 min drive it dies between gears sometimes even feathering the gas to keep it alive. It feels like ign. breakup.