I've had this 95 16v automatic tracker awhile. Ok story starts my wife drives the car. She told me that it is suffering from a power loss. Me being out of town had my local mech look at it. He did a full tune up. It ran a little better but not like it's suppose to. I had her take it back and he found thirteen degrees out of time. Adjusted it ran like new. Happened a week later same thing out of time and she had the timing checked 18 degrees out. Another week goes by the tracker from full power to dead in about a two mile strech. Took it in for timing belt found that it was the crank key on the timing gear. OUCH put a new crank in and now it won't start (it's real close though). (Was this a secondary problem with the tracker dieing on the final day). Timing is dead on. Built a adapter to check fuel presure it's good. 180#s of compression on all four cylinders. Nice consistant spark. I'm bout to spend a lot of money to have it diagnosed at an electrical shop. Just lookin for ideas. This thing hasn't ran in almost 2 years

How are you checking the timing? If you put in a new crank, you had to remove the timing belt. It could be a tooth off in either direction and cause this type of starting issue. Also, the crank/cam timing on these is quite easy to get wrong due to the confusing marks on the cam and crank wheels. Try rotating your distributor all the way one direction  ( retard ) then the other ( advance) and see if it wants to start easier. Did you just pull the Crank out through the oil pan or did you disassemble the whole engine?

To be honest i'm not the one working on it. I haven't checked the timing myself. I know he had the valve cover off and should have been able to do double check it. The plugs seemed dry. But we couldn't get it to run off of a direct fuel spray through the intake. They pulled the motor. Then the cank from the oil pan. I was thinking that it died for another reason and I found the freak deal bout the crank key. I just don't know. I'll check back in with any leads.

After sitting here thinking about it i'm just going to double check everything. It has to be something simple.

I would say the crank key was the problem all along.
I'd guess the timing is probably 180* out (just firing at the correct time on 2 cylinders...so that is probably why it "real close" to starting).  Or it could be off a tooth, like BP said.