re. UPDATE: fuel starvation/loud pump on 83 urq

[ben swann]

:
[The car will not accelerate without stumbling badly. This can occur
even in 1st gear. The tach needle doesn't bounce so I think the coil is
working.]

Good primary - doesn't tell you anything about the secondary(spark side)

[BTW, how hot is a coil supposed to get?]

not very

[Here's what I've done so far:

I relayed the pump to direct battery power and gained over a volt (but
I did that a while ago).]

Good.

<snipped - fuel pump stuff>

Pumps go bad - mine was locked up.  The brand new(rebuilt?) locked up
too as soon as power was supplied.  Tried a few other used ones I had
and they were having problems but one ran ok to get the car running as
you describe yours.  I finally got success with the replacement for the
bad new one - what a difference.

If a new pump doesn't fix it, consider it a good investment anyway.
Then revisit your ignition and make sure it really is OK.  Marginal
wires/bad coil/spark breakdown can exhibit very similar poor running.