I have a 95 ford escort wagon 1.9L I picked up cheap. had an exhuast leak and fuel leak. I repaired the fuel leak (crack in tank) and changed out the manifold gasket. Funny thing is the car drove fine with the exhuast leak, but now after repairing it when i start up the car the rpms shoot up to about 1500 befor slowly dropping down to range (about 750-800) and when put in gear (reverse/drive) the exhaust pops a bunch and the car dies. If i get the rpms up above 2000 befor it dies the engine sounds fine. Tried actually test driving it and car has low accelleration and everytime it switched gears i got a shimmy and felt like it was going to die.
The check engine light isn't coming on.
It's an automatic.

Haven't been able to get an obd1 on it yet. Hoping for any input on what it could be. (tried changing out the ecm, pcm, and tps (parts from junkyard) and also changed the fuel filter)

Can anyone help?

 

Have you checked for a possible plugged catalytic converter. Sounds like the exhaust pressure was able to exit via the leak.

 

So checked the catalytic converter and the fuel pressure at the fuel injector rail. Changed out the rail and the injectors and still having the same problem. Got an OBD on it and got KOER code 412. Gonna try running through the trouble shooting for that code. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the post. Appreciate any help I can get.