thanks for the info guys. Gubbs, i thought of flipping it backwards to see if it would start correctly, but never tried. I figured that it would likely just flash up in that direction, as it seems to want to rotate that way. The way that you described the engine running was right on. idle...throttle...die...flip. you can hear the difference right away when it does start correctly.

i did a little search through the forum and there seems to be a few posts about 4c's with this affliction, such as sawyer said. one thing suggestion was too hot of a plug. anyone else heard of that being a problem?