Hey, I have an 88 Trooper LS and had similer problems, Timing was way out like you said, and the Idle was sitting at about 1500 cold and warmed up was about 1100, rather high for my liking. after the head blew up on it and a full on rebuild took place, it runs awsome. Now check for vacuum lines that are old, hooked to the wrong place, I found that my 2.6 was very sensitve to anything we did to it. and with all the vaccum lines and almost new everything on this engine it idles at about 800 to 900 RPM warm and about 1100 cold with a 180 degree thermostat. another thing you can try is unpluggine the battery for a couple of min to see if it will reset the ECU. I did so last week after the rebuild was done and had the CEL light come on and it was sputtering. also what octane of fuel are you running? mine does not like anything below 90. just throwing some ideas out there for you. working on these things is like being lost and slowly find your way back LOL but YES they are worth it very dependable once they are fixed right and maintained. Later