Sparks out exaust, Won't rev over 3,500!

Hey guys, I'm about to buy a civic if we can get it to work.

The problem is that sparks fly out of the exhaust when going down the road, it might be coming from under the car, but seems mostly from the tailpipe area.

We removed the catalytic converter which was red hot and clogged, but still sparks came flying out.

Also the car will not RPM over 3,500 after warming up.

He said the ECU might be bad, but could changing that really fix it?
He said the ECU was throwing a "NO CODE" when they looked at it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

-Serp

Check your timing, sounds like the belt is a tooth off. Had it happen to me quit a bit the first year I raced, car had no timing covers so no marks to go off of.

Thats always the first thing I think of when it won't go past ~3500 rpms.

I've also seen a bad distributor cause you not to be able to rev over 3500, but no idea what the sparks are from.

Sparks could be from bad timing too. I don't know if mine ever threw sparks because I was always in the car and the door didn't quite open for some reason ;)