Poor performance, low RPM

Very observant, I will take a look at that. Any recommendations as to what brand of wires, dizy cap & rotor to get??? How about the igniter??? Coil??? Distributor??? Or what not to buy???

Yes, good idea of Mazdatweaker_2.

Since there seems to be poor performance like maybe running on 3 cylinders (one non-firing cylinder), I'd concentrate on what could possibly cause that. So no ignitor, distributor, or coil for now. Distributor cap and wires, most likely.

Question: I doubt you've done the substitution yet of spark plug wires for #1 and #2 because you haven't posted results of such test. But you can put on a work glove and start the engine, and carefully pull the spark plug wires from the distributor one at a time, and see if that makes the idle worse or engine stall out. That would pinpoint a non-firing cylinder (the one that does NOT cause an idle droppage). When I do this test I pull the wire out of the distributor, then hold it close to see the spark jumping and the idle increase a little. By the way, you don't need a tachometer for this test, you can tell if a cylinder is firing because disconnecting its wire will cause a drop in idle. But removing the wire on a non-firing cylinder won't have an effect.

So I would NOT now get coil, ignitor

I'm going to start at the cylinder head & work my way back. Plugs, Wires, Dizy Cap & Rotor.

I find it hard to believe that a Mazda Dealer & Independent repair shop could misdiagnose it this bad, for something this easy. Some reason it seems like I went this route 3 years ago. I don't remember on the truck.

What brand of wires, cap, & rotor is recommended???

I can't help with recommending on these, except about a decade ago I had an issue so I just decided to change these three, think I went to CarQuest. The situation did not get better (was another issue) and within a year the spark plug wires had cracks in them, so I re-installed the factory wires and run those today. 201K miles, Arizona heat.

So maybe I say factory wires.

IF, it is determined that parts replacement is in order, I would go with factory wires, and Robert Bosch cap and rotor. I say IF, because they aren't cheap, but quality never is. You can visually inspect the cap prior to spending one dime on a replacement. Failure will be pretty obvious from your description of things.

As Cusser suggested swapping wire one and two will cause the problem to transfer to another cylinder so that is just part of good diagnostics prior to spending any more hard cash. You can also shove a pug into the end of wire #2 and crank the engine and see what color spark it puts out. The wire may have internal shorting and a dim spark would show that. Do you have a multimeter? If so, you can check the wire for excessive impedance. It maybe broken down internally.

I also give the shops a little break, because they were dealing with a dead miss due to mechanical failure regarding the valve seat.

I cannot think of one thing on these carbureted trucks that would fuel foul cylinder #2 except ignition component failure.

Unlike the carbureted Toyota Tercels that used to have a diaphragm that was actuated via manifold vacuum. When the diapragm failed it dumped fuel directly into intake runner for cylinder 2. Really poor design.

Hope this helps.

I forgot to post earlier that sometimes a bad cylinder can be caused by a spark jumping to ground through a crack in the spark plug wires, dirty connector at the plug, dirty top of plug, or the dirty cap as described before.

One can run the engine while dark and look for sparks actually jumping. Sometimes a mist of water will help pinpoint these.

I don't notice anything about a compression check. I would check that to rule out the mechanical part of the equation.

Vehicle runs exactly the same as BEFORE the cylinder head replacement as AFTER the cylinder head replacement.

They could not perform a leak down test, didn't have that equipment.
The had the spark gap tool & were able to see the spark make significant jump/gap.
After replacing the cylinder head, they told me they spent ALOT of time on it for about 30 days & eventually gave up hope. They had the truck for about 2 years after that. I never picked the truck up until recently. They refused to throw parts at it. We settled on a discounted bill / invoice & I picked the truck up. So, now based on what I see as the "effect" over several hours of driving & not a 30 second spark gap test, I am going after the Ignition System.

Okay, vehicle just did a thousand mile trip. Vehicle is bone stock.
Idle at stop is about 1100-1200. You can smell it running rich. I need to look into this. Ideas???
(Side note, when jump starting vehicle, it seemed to idle better, had an rebuilt alternator fail).
Gas Mileage was in the high teens at mostly 65-70mph.
New Cap, Rotor, & Wires.
New K&N Air filter.
When accelerating, one needs to tap the gas pedal (blink of an eye tap) it Revs to about 3000 RPMs & then you need to let the clutch out & accelerate. If not it will buck, jerk, & die.
Check engine light is on. I'm pretty sure it is due to mileage. Vehicle is Carb'ed.
Planning on replacing original O2 sensor. Exhaust is cat back rusted out.
Any other ideas???

Update:
After watching YouTube ( " target="_blank ) and wanting to see what is up with the Check Engine Light, so I switched the White/White connector to White/Black (135,000 miles). Check Engine Light is NOT on anymore.

Upon starting the vehicle cold/cold start I noticed the idle was just under 1,000 RPM's Took vehicle for a test drive & acceleration was SMOOOOOOOOTH. Did not have to rev the engine up to 2,000 plus RPM's to accelerate from a dead stop. The fear of accelerating across an intersection & getting "T" boned is gone. Hesitation at low RPM's & trying to accelerate is gone.

My question is, how does switching these two wires cure the Poor Performance at low RPM's???

Granted I've only drove the vehicle for about 5 minutes after getting the Check Engine OFF. Idle when warm is about 1200 RPM's, but that is another issue.