91 hatch sputters

[destroyyourmind]

everywhere I have tried wont get a connection to the ecu when I try to run a code ,even tried switching my ecu's out and still no luck when I start it. it seems really boggish and sputters and the idle is all messed up, but once it runs its good and drives fine minus it feeling really slow. checked for vaccumn leaks couldnt find any. cleaned my air filter and my throttle body checked all the wires. running really rich also. unplugged the maf and the idle got really bad. so I'm pretty sure thats not it. any help would be appreciated. UPDATE. car idles at 7 most of the time then will try to drop till the car dies when I come to a complete stop, and its backfiring pretty bad way more than normal. now its getting really hard to start its just turning over not firing and eventually it starts
Modified by destroyyourmind at 10:44 PM 4/25/2008

[smokerider]

did you check all leak like spayin around the manifolds. check gas and compression

[destroyyourmind]

yep no vaccumn leaks as far as I have seen went over every line numerous times andcompression was 175 on all 4 cylinders