i posted about two weeks ago, but there have been a few developments.

A little background: On the way back, roughly, from a 1000 mile trip, we were sitting in traffic and suddenly the engine began idling high...and then higher and higher. We got her off the road right before she was about to overheat. We opened up the "hood" to see if we could see anything wrong with a quick inspection, but didn't notice anything. We did notice that one of the coolant hoses had slipped and fallen on the engine and was about 30 seconds away from meliting, which happened to us a week before. So we decided we had to let her cool down, to protect what was remaining of that hose and get home. Four or five hours later, we checked the oil and put about half a quart in. She started up and made it almost all the way home without incident. Then we got to a highway with some fairly decent hills and she wouldn't make it up them in anything but 3rd gear going about 35 or so....the problem got steadily worse, but would get a little better if we stopped for awhile. She is also leaking a small amount of oil/water from heads and main seal between the blocks. This is a list of things we have done, at the lists' suggestion, that have not appreciably fixed the problem:

--replaced fuel filter --replaced plugs, ditributor cap and rotor (all in SAD shape)

People have suggested the throttle switch(s), the catalytic converter, the clutch, the fuel injectors and/or the ECU...it seems to me however that except for perhaps the clutch, if any of these were the problem, that we would notice less gas burning, or the engine sounding like it was running at less RPMs. So, i wanted to ask everyone's opinion on the possiblity of the oil being so contaminiated with water/gases that it is no longer properly lubricating, thus allowing the engine to expend too much of the energy produced in the form of heat. She has been running a bit hot and in the past month has overheated a few times due to cooling system problems.

What is the correct oil weight i should be putting in this engine and is there a decent workable aftermarket oil filter?

i am not quite ready to give up on the engine, which some have told me, because she was running so well before the high idling problem, which is as yet unexplained (any theories).

Thanks! Josh