So I got a salvage throttle body and sure enough that did the trick. I now can control the idle. I still think it is mysterious that nothing I tried could identify a vacuum leak. Oh well.

Has anyone followed the procedure to set the accelerator cable tension. I have a chiltons type manual (I couldn't find it in the FSM I downloaded here) that has you get the engine normal operating temp, turn the key on for 15 sec and then place a feeler gauge ( I can't remember the thickness) between the SAS and the throttle and then tighten the throttle cable tension to that. I followed this and either I am doing something wrong or its whacked! If you do this the throttle never touches the SAS and the idle speed is elevated and not controlled by anything.

I am still having issues with the timing. Now that I can control the idle speed I set the timing. With the timing set the engine pings severely. So I had to set the timing by driving it and adjusting the timing until I did not get any pinging. Something is still not right. The engine is sluggish and does not have the power I know it used to.

I'm stuck.