Alright, I give up.. I've been trying to fix this thing for like 3 months now. If i start it the car runs rough and sounds cammed, then it raises the idle to a little over 1500 and it smoothes out then drops back down and gets rough again.. I have had no check engine lights, but one came on about 2 weeks ago for Electronic Spark Circuit. I found low resistance on the primary side on one of the coils which I'm going to replace and see if it fixes. Also, when i hit the gas at WOT, the car pulls fairly strong and about halfway to redline, you can feel the car lose power like i lost a cylinder or something. My car has intake, exhaust, and a pulley and I got murdered by a cavalier Z24 last week that was bone stock.. somethings definitely not right. Does anyone have any ideas as to what it could be? It'* not a clogged cat, since I don't have one.. If I can't figure this out, I'm just going to put the stock pulley back on and put the airbox back in and drive it like an SE. :( Any help is appreciated.

Get a chiltons to begin with,
Id check and replace the fuel filter.
Then possibly remove and inspect your Idle air control valve, and test your TPS for any voltage drops when the throttle is being depressed with the key turned to on, engine off.

my problems seems different, but recheck coils, check for loose/broken vacuum lines that run to the throttle body- area

also do a compression check..

It could be a burnt valve, thats what my car is doing and thats what my mechanic said it was after a compression check (and new set of plugs, plug wires, fule filter and air filter.)

If you do have a weak coil pack it will really affect your high end power. As the load increases, the pressure within the cylinder raises as well. That means you need more voltage to jump across the sparkplug. If you were to hook the car up to a dyno with an ignition tester (secondary) you would get a really good idea of how this works. So, it could be that the coil is not producing the sufficient voltage at heavy load. If it is misfiring at idle, the IAC valve might raise the RPM of the engine as the RPM drops due to the misfire. To be absolutly sure of this you would need an ignition dignostic computer (the big cabinet that not many mechanics know how to use any more) The fact that you have had a code for the ESC tells us something here. Do you remember what code it was? I have trouble shooting charts for codes, so it could give somewhere to start.

I am actually having a similar problem as well. The engine, when hot especially, does sound cammy and under heavy load (pulling out up a hill on an on-ramp, 3/4 throttle+) it does bog down at a certain point but it doesn't feel like the sparkplug misfire that I have had a few times.

A hiccup like that, and loss of power could be a clogged catalytic converter as well. You have some symptoms of one.

Others could be possibilities as well. Some muffler shops will test cats for you for free so you buy their stuff.

He has not cat. I am thinking plugs right now.

No cat either here.

I always assume when the cat gets messed up it smells like rotten eggs.. even when clogged.. maybe that'* not so tru then.. I have intermittent hicups and MPG is crap ( no working */C probably contributes to that ).. but how would you check to see if it'* the cat or the O2 sensor without ripping everything out?