93 protege Just started running like crap!! help?

[92RS]

I got this car for cheap (free) and after putting new suspension into it and cleaning it up, the battery went dead. Not jump it and drive but replace-me dead. After replacing the battery, the car runs terrible. It is missing at idle and honestly sounds like an old VW upon takeoff. It had plenty of get-up when I got it, but now it falls flat on its face. if you rev it up above 2500, from idle, it will idle down and stutter or stall. It shakes like I don't know what.
The plugs are fairly recent, cylinder #1 (closest to the pass. side) has a little bit more carbon build up on the plug than the other 3. The car has 193K on it and is the LX 1.8L DOHC model with a 5 speed. It smokes a tiny bit on initial startup. It smells like its running rich if you rev it up a few times in succession. It seems to smooth out above 1500Rpm or so. Underload, it dogs out from idle to around 3K..... basically cruising speed rev range :-)

The only modification to the car is an airfilter adapter and a cone filter.

It's not driverable as is and i don't know what to do with it at this point. Help?

Thanks in advance,

Jay

[Doug Tatham]

Check your compression. Also see if any of your spark plugs are loose.