Joe First of all, my sympathies for your problem. I have just had a very similar experience which I will briefly summarise. My car is 0737. I have recently purchasing it from an owner who had lovingly cared for it for the past 12years but only covered 400miles. I started having overheating problems almost straight away. To try and correct this I have changed all the fuses, had the relay update kit, fan fail 2x2, self-bleeder, new thermostat, new temp sensors from John Hervey. Whilst testing these I was not driving the car very far. Then like you I suddenly started getting extreme problems even getting the car to run. The car WOULD idle properly but as soon as I tried to accelerate the engine would splutter and die. Revving very hard and flooring the accelerator would only generate ~2500rpm. Sensors were adjusted/changed and the petrol flow from the tank was tested. After trying to move the car forward onto a ramp it was noticed that my rear bumper had started to distort. Upon inspection the original heat shield was found to have destroyed itself?. The cause of my misery was that the catalytic converter had disintegrated sending all of its internal stuff (I'm sure there is a technical name for the insides but I don't know what it is) into the exhaust silencer effectively blocking it. This was generating much of the excess heat causing my initial problems, and then when it became fully blocked prevented normal engine running. My initial problems were much more severe on hills. I believe that the bits from the cat were moving in the silencer becoming more blocked on an incline. My old silnecer rattled when shaken! I have just got the car back after fitting a new cat-bypass pipe and new silencer, the engine is now running perfectly, I just need to find someone to repair/straighten the bumper. Good Luck! John Chapelhow `Boeing' 0737