Bead blasted them, and we saw great spark at the plugs afterwards.

Ok, then I'm sticking with funny business with the timing of one of the shafts. Final answer.

It didn't skip a tooth, guaranteed.

Hi - Spark, fuel, compression. You are forgetting air? Don't ask me how, but maybe somehow you are not getting air, or your exhaust is plugged. That would do it.

J

Exhaust is not plugged, engine is drawing air. Both were checked.

ezk box? try the random things like unplugging the maf?

any kind of alarm system on the car?

is there voltage to the coil on run and not just crank?

Dale & I spent 3 hours going over everything.
My first guess was bad fuel, but it was clean & OK with no watter
We checked timing, TPS, MAFS, FPR, Timing belt, fuel pressure, knock sensor, plugs, cap, rotor,, cam....
When we did get it running you would swear the timing belt had skipped a tooth or two or the timing was retarded but it is not.
I left Dale to get an ignition computer from PnP

Got the ignition computer and plugged it in...

... and .... ?

Nothing changed...

Just a thought....is your gas tank venting properly? Had a similar experience at one time,where the car would cut out,usually after idling for awhile,chased my tail on that one (kinda like you guys)

How did you check out the alignment of the crank/cam? I once saw a 740 that the balancer bolt backed out slightly, ended up sheering the dowel. It let the crank pulley wiggle on the crank nub enough to prevent it from firing up.

Jordan

Specifically to that situation, I've been turning this engine by the crank bolt. It's tight.

Dale and Ian did the chopstick method and made sure the cam pulley lined up with the cam cover. They pulled the cover to prove that the cam was in the appropriate place. I don't know if they pulled the belt cover to check the cam bolt and dowel.

We confirmed the cam is turning by pulling the cam cover off.

I'm pretty certain this was not a mechanical failure. Regardless, we have checked the rotating assembly so make sure it is all working as it should. I'm pretty certain that the engine wouldn't restart (as it did shortly after it died) and run as smoothly as it did, with a mechanical failure.

Today I went through a step by step diagnostic on the ignition box only to find everything is normal there. All sensors are within spec. Grounds and voltages are all correct as well. Looking for a diagnostic procedure for the fuel computer. Hmmm...maybe VADIS...never thought about that. Also replaced the crank position sensor with a new one today...

A bit of an update. Pulled all the plugs last night, cleaned them and put them back in. Then tried cranking. It wanted to fire on at least one cylinder. Through a dance routine that involved cranking, pulling the RSR, cranking again, pulling plugs to dry them off, cranking some more with plugs out to dry things out, I managed to get it to actually run. Now, this is not necessarily a victory but it was running on all 4 cylinders. But...and this is a huge BUT, it was absolutely pig rich and spark was retarded a massive amount. I had it spinning at 3000 rpm for probably 10 or 15 minutes and with it running in reasonable vacuum, the turbo was smoking hot and I'm sure, if I could've checked, I would've seen flames shooting out of the exhaust. It was running the same way Ian and I had it running Thursday.

With these symptoms, I'm now seriously considering the knock sensor or, more accurately, the knock sensor circuit. The system will pull timing until it can't pull any more. Once it's pulled all the timing it can, it starts adding fuel and can add copious amounts of fuel. I'm pretty sure I'm at both extremes...

Heading off to PnP to see if my parts donor has any knock sensor wiring. Someone was nice enough to pull the intake manifold off the other day so yanking sensors and wiring should be a breeze...if they're still there...