the belt looks very new, i beleive it was changed rght before i purchased the car (from what the previous owner told me). i didnt know they could just skip a tooth like that, figured that was something timing chains are more prone to do. but anyways we kinda fucked with the distributor position to see if that had anything to do with it and didnt really get anywhere with that so i ended up putting it back to its original setting that we had marked. ive never had problems like this with any car before and im pretty new to all this shit in particular so im kinda shooting in the dark with most of it. i'll try looking into some more of the timing stuff tomorrow. everyone keeps suggesting that i have a vaccuum leak too, judging by the symptoms, although i have no idea where to start looking because everything seems to be in place...

and what i meant by switching the plug wires was replacing them with a new set, which did nothing, so i brought them back.