duh!!!

A little info on the car... 93 del Sol, D16 with a manual transmission. Roughly 190k miles with a fresh timing belt and water pump. Ran like a top!
My problems started when my wife (she really is a good driver ) lost all power just after getting on the highway, doing around 50 MPH. She hauled it home on the trailer. No fuel pump, no spark, normal compression (didn't check it with a gauge). I find out after dinking with it for a few hours that there was a smell and small amount of smoke at the passenger's feet. I checked the computer...sure enough, a capacitor let go and burned through the board. I found a replacement P28 ECM and installed it. Fuel pump kicked in...this is a good sign. When I tried to start it, it fired but didn't run. I hit the key again, only now it rolled over with no (or little) compression. I checked compression and measured 50-60 psi. GRRRR....timing belt jumped (distributor was turning). I checked the timing belt, dead nutz on. Distributor was right on with #1 TDC. OK...well, Next was a leak down...popped the exhaust off and again, with each cylinder at TDC, I was blowing air out of the exhaust ports. I'm thinking to myself...WTF did I do and what happened??? I took the head off and found nothing obvious. Next thing for me to do is drop a few valves and check for runout and cracking.

I am a confident shade tree mechanic. But, this thing has me completely BAFFLED!!! Wrong computer? A buddy of mine races this motor in a stock car and has toasted many of them. He said I can't F it up. Sure looks like I did!! So...would anybody with more Honda experience be willing to comment?? It just seems like there's something stupid easy that I missed...but I can't find it!