i have the answer.
Get new coils, when one set isnt working right youll be losing power randomly quickly, and sometimes only 2 cyl's will run if one coil is out. I got new ones, car runs excellent again. As for fixing my speedometer.........The ***** before me never plugged the speed sensor back in on top of the transmission, car runs immaculate again and gets good milage again insted of spitting unburnt fuel out the exhaust (silt (black dust) ) also, if your going to replace the coils, get some decent wires, but replace the plugs as well, I went with NGK which was recommended and cheap. go for it! if anyone has questions ask me, just fixed this **** of a problem

If it was only running on 2 cylinders wouldn't it kick a misfire code? The reason I am asking this is because I have been having a problem for about a month with my car kinda popping and sputtering at random times while driving down the road. The speedometer will actually jump as its doing it and the car bucks like mad. I found if I keep the RPMs above about 5500 all the time it doesn't do it as much. It started right after I filled the car up and I was hoping that I just got some bad gas. I've filled the car up twice since then and it seems as if it is starting run a little better but its still doing it just less frequently. The one time it did kick a code the code said manufacturer controlled ignition system. I can't remember off hand what the code number was.

My car was misfiring like mad and no CEL came on ever. replaced the wires and it was fine. obviously if it misfires its something electrical.

Okay that kind of makes sense. After spending almost $1500 to redo the clutch in my 06 (doing it myself) I don't want to go out and spend more money then I have to to fix my 96. I don't want to start replacing a bunch of parts that isn't going to fix the problem. I've done that enough times with this car already. This scenario sounds like my problem so I guess I am going to start with the things mentioned previously and see if it fixes my problem.

Did u manage to find any solution to this problem? I've changed my plugs, my coilpack and new plugwires (NGK), the problem seems to have a connection to my RPM indicator as my engine runs smooth when the RPM indicator is "dead" and getting the misfire code when it moves (not moving as it should), maybe one of my sensors should be changed.. i got an errorcode 0300 Ignition misfire..