I just spoke with Zach at SIA electronics for about 1 minute. I explained the situation: his company charged me for work they did not do and if he could please issue a refund.

He asked me to send pictures. I was put on hold for an additional 3 or 4 minutes and when he came back he immediately issued a refund for all of my money. No further questions, no further proof.

They knew.

"I can't get your pictures to zoom in my computer isn't working right now. But anyway, I don't really care about 200 bucks. I'll just have accounting refund your money".

They know what they did.

Do not do business with SIA Electronics.

 

New day, new challenges. I was hoping to bump this thread with success, but I'm not. Sadly. But I'm left with an even more perplexing story. I've now replaced the battery, VSC computer and now the entire ECU with remanufactured by Denso unit. Hat tip to Mr. Tanin himself for personally handling it and turning around the part in 3 hours. But sadly I'm still in the same boat, it didn't change anything.

The car still will not start. No change in symptoms. Same CEL codes , same no start, same VSC error displayed on the dash.

There must be something else that happened.

 

Ugh. Since it coincided originally with ECU removal and replacement, is it possible that some part of the wiring or connector to the ECU under the glove box was strained or damaged in some way?

 

I've taken as close of a look as I can with what I know, I don't think so. I've tugged on every one of the wires into each connector and it all seems fine. I don't see anything amiss with the female plugs either.

 

Now that you can (semi) confidently assume that the ECU is not the problem, you can get down to some serious diagnosis. Resist the urge to draw conclusions. What makes me say this is, when I removed and replaced the hush panel under the driver's side of the dash, my fuel gauge wouldn't read correctly. I didn't touch a thing under the dash, yet the gauge went wonky. It wasn't the sending unit, but the gauge itself. I never did figure out why or what happened.

Review:

1. P0120 - Throttle/Pedal Position Sensor/Switch ”A” Circuit Malfunction
2. P1120 - Accelerator Pedal Position Sensor Circuit Malfunction
3. P1126 - Magnetic Clutch Circuit Malfunction
4. P1656 - OCV Circuit Malfunction (bank 1)

The first three appear suspicious. They're all related to the throttle body. The Oil Control Valve appears to be an outlier (the engine needs to be running to diagnose this one). I would review and follow the diagnostics contained in the FSM for these DTC's.

This in the diagnostics for P0120 stands out. What is the E2 sensor and where is its ground? The E2 is a terminals are part of the Throttle Position and the Accelerator Position sensor.

Page DI-39 from 1998 FSM

Why the throttle position sensors would prevent the engine from starting is unknown. Regardless, I would try to work thru these diagnostics. It's all you have at this point.

 

this is a very good observation by paulo57509,

so for me, trying not to over-simplify it and bring it to basic observations, an engine needs a few basic things to at least start for at least a short time, it needs fuel, and it needs spark at least.. without reading back through the entire thread did you ever establish if it is getting spark or not? That's an easy thing to figure out quickly. If its not it's obviously some sort of electrical at that point. If it is getting spark, then it becomes a fuel delivery problem and establishing why it it is not delivering fuel which is related to the codes apparently