Hi,
I have had the transmission rebuilt and done 25 or so miles on it and it runs and responds a lot better. Its not a rabbit but it isn't a turtle anymore either.

Now I have the issue of lifter or valve noise that gets worse when accelerating. It feels like I am losing power to whatever is causing that noise. I say this because when the noise occasionally goes away or lessens I have more power to the wheels.
Edit; I was just reading the plenum thread and the "can of marbles" description of a symptom fits here. Thing is I did the plenum last summer and along with the timing chain and tensioner it doubled the gas mileage and the can of marbles went away except on large hills and then it was only ticking like lifter noise!? I'm gonna pull the hat and take a look inside today but I do not expect to find any problem.

The serpentine belt has started squeaking pretty much from the day after I had it in to get the motor checked so that I could isolate the transmission as the source of the problem I had then. That lifter/valve noise got worse right after that too.
It goes away with belt dressing but only for short periods. I theorise that if it goes away after spraying it that this means the belt is bad and not that the pulleys are out of line. Does anyone have any information of a more experienced nature? The belt is only $35 or so but I'd rather make sure I don't need to change pulleys or retighten the crank pulley first. (I did the timing chain tensioner TSB last summer)