thanks to those who responded to my question.
the clogged cat is a good thought all right....
altho I've seen inside it recently and it looked pretty nice,
tho I think it has 190K on it.
egnine power is great, which would tend to indicate that the cat is not clogged., still a good thing to think about.

also, on the suggestion about the timing...
my understanding of knock sensor timing is the ecu takes care of the timing...it tries to advance it as much as it can all the time, and the knock sensor keeps it just below tghe knock threshhold ....
is this correct ?
or should I be getting out the ole timing light ?

I did move the distributor in the directon of retard, and it seemed to run more smoothly,and I had been getting some pinging, and went to mid-grade fuel to stop that.....but should I really be 'adjusting' the timing like on any gasoline car ?

thnx in advance, scott