anthother break down, I'm starting to hate this car.... Options

[brant]

Hi everyone,
I think my car might be posessed. Its the 72/1.7FI motor that I have been working on for 2 months.. I finally went through most of the FI and fixed a fuel problem and got everything working well..

It ran good for 1 week, and I installed a crane 700 optical ignition..

New problem: (could be related to new ignition or maybe not) I'd love your input..

Yesterday, started out with a weird idle. It had been rock steady in the past (new vacuum lines everywhere). I would pull up to a stop sign and it would idle down too far like 600rpm then catch itself and idle back up. Pull onto highway with motor warm, at above 4000rpms car starts pulling slowly... down on power.. then engine dies.. After coasting in gear for 2-3 blocks it comes back to life.. Seems to run normal if I don't rev it past 3000rpm.. As soon as it is reved back to 4000 or 4500 it again is down on power, and then dies again. Not bucking, but my guess is that there is no spark.

Once I looked in the mirror when it began running again and saw a big cloud of smoke, which I think was unburnt fuel. So my preliminary guess is that its got fuel, but spark is cutting out.
All fuel lines are new and fuel filter is new also. I can hear pump running. I could have a failed crane ignition, but I wouldn't think that would partially fail instead of good/bad.

Things that have been replaced in the past month include: plug wires, plugs, cap, rotor, fuel lines, vacuum lines, CHT..

how does a coil fail?

brant