This is the note that I sent in with the car to the shop...
First of all, the car has been hard to start for several weeks… you have to crank it quite a bit to get it going… On Monday March 2nd I went up to my girlfriends place for dinner and spent the night… It got very cold overnight, single digit temps, and when I came out to go to work the following morning, no amount of cranking would get it going. I tried for over an hour. I tried again to start it Wednesday evening with no luck, and it was Thursday evening that I finally got it started, after a lot of trying… It ran a little rough, and after it started warming up, it would periodically shoot flames/sparks out of the back of the distributer… not knowing what to do at that point, I shut it down and decided to give it a good going over Saturday… Saturday morning when I went out, it started right up, one crank and it was fine… while idling I noticed it started smoking some, and looked to see the check engine light had come on. If I revved it up to 2000 rpm the check engine light would go out. But it still seemed to be smoking a bit. I shut it down, and restarted several times over the next hour or so, and it started right up every time. I ran an errand driving the car several miles and although the check engine light would come on at idle, it got me there and back no problem. It would go out once I started driving… Since my girl and I were sharing a car, and I work in Lancaster and she works in Harrisburg, I decided to give it a go on Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning it started right up again, and I drove the car from Colonial Park to Brownstown and home again that night near Rohrerstown. That afternoon it became hard to start again, but so far this week it has started after much cranking, although it does seem to be running rough. The check engine light does come on at idle from time to time, and it does tend to want to stall at low speeds, and in traffic. If I’m moving and pop the clutch it will fire right up, if I have to start with a key, it takes me awhile… that is where we are with it right now… whatever is going on, it straightened itself out for a couple days, then started acting up again…