I still don't quite understand why it ran fine with something un-pliugged, and when it was plugged it it ran like crap

Oh well ... Glad to hear you've got it up and running again !!

 

Limp in home mode, a fail safe in most CPU cars etc 88 and on

 

yeah that's what the wrecking yard guy told us. My guess is the signal off the pickup coil was bad so it took 1 of the signals and used it for the limp mode.

I'd bet the bank the signal looked like this...

___---___---___---___---___ good signal
___---___---_________---___ bad signal