kyleproject

84 Prelude, 270,000km

At the beginning of the week I started up the car and to keep it from dying I gave it a little gas. Standard procedure with a car this old I usually do this for about 15 or 20 seconds until the high idle can take over while I scrape the windows. Anyway, after taking my foot off the gas, the rpms come down naturally but then they keep going and going and going and...oh **** it's about to stall. So I give it more gas, get the revs up again and same thing. Eventually it dies. When I tried starting it, it would fire for maybe half a second, and then kaput, nothing. I was already late for work so I said **** it and took my motorbike. I didn't touch it again until last night (I don't drive very much) and it fired up right away no problems. I was late for practise so I took off right away and about 20 seconds later, the engine just cuts out as I'm driving along. I drift to the side of the road and try and get it started and the same thing happens as before. It'll catch for a 1/2, maybe 1 second and then nothing.

Now, you should know this car is a little sick. After doing a compression test, cylinder 4 is at 120 while the others are all at 180 (or there abouts). Also, the distributor is on the way out as it leaks oil. Would any of these factors be the cause of this problem? I'm trying to narrow it down so I can troubleshoot it better.

Give me any ideas you got cause this car has been in the family for ages and we don't want to lose it just yet. Although I am tempted by the new supercharged Tacomas