the coil has arrived today, so got the engine cover off and went ahead and replaced it. the coil is OEM (not OE) BOSCH, part # 0 221 504 464, cost me $34.50 delivered. replacement was easy-breasy: cylinder #5 probably the easiest cylinder to work on. the coil housing is dry as dinosaur's bone... i did not pull the spark plug, as it looked ok - besides, i wanted to know, if the coil was a problem...

while i had the engine cover off, i pulled the air tube from the throttle body, and there was some light gunk around the edges of the butterfly. i sprayed it with throttle cleaner, got as much of the gunk off as i could... the engine had hard time running with the tube off but did not stall.

after the cleaner, the engine did not want to start, as you guys had said, but after a few turns, it caught up and fired up... once the initial hiccups settled, the engine purred like a lion cub... i thought that i was having a placebo effect, but when i connected the INPA and watched the cylinder #5 on the live feed, the feed was nice and smooth, like the rest of the cylinders...

while i had the covers off, i checked the CCV covers to make sure that i had them snapped on tight, which i did...

i took the car around the block, it seemed to perform adequately, but i still need to check the car on the start up from cold, and check it on the highway for the pick-up-and-go...

however, the blue smoke on the idle is still there - so, in addition to the CCV membrane that was leaking, i might have a leak somewhere deeper...

i will continue to monitor this issue...