Quote Originally Posted by avguy View Post
The whole bit with disconnecting the battery is to reset the learned portion of the ECM, because it's possible that the computer can shut down one or more cylinders when it sees lots of misfire. And if so, that would affect the spark testing results, so resetting the ECM eliminates that possibility. Touching the cables drains the caps and clears memory faster. Although I didn't mention it, the battery does need to be reconnected before doing the spark test.

That said, it sounds like there's spark, based on what you wrote. It would be good to check all 4 plugs, in order to be certain that all are firing, but I'd expect that spark is ok. So do the fuel spray test, and post back with the results.
Very interesting! That makes sense, I would not have thought about ensuring the ECM was reset to ensure an accurate spark test result. Something tells me spark is okay as well, but I can't be certain. I'm hoping to be able to poke around the car a bit tomorrow, but will definitely have time this weekend to tackle it if not. I will absolutely be picking up some sensor-safe starter fluid and doing the fuel spray test.

What's curious to me is that we were able to get it to fire up once last night, about 2 hours before my thread was created, by jumping the new battery with my '98 Trans Am for awhile. Giving it some gas on my end and she was juuuuust able to get it started for a bit. I disconnected the cables and it died within a minute after having ran for at least 5 minutes. I wish I had run it longer like that to have a better idea of if that was a coincidence or not...

I will be updating you ASAP avguy! Really appreciate the help, I've scoured these forums and read some interesting stuff, and I hate to see the threads with similar problems go unfinished, so I fully intend on trying to make this detailed until it's finally solved so that way it can serve as a nice reference point for any owners in the future who have this problem.