Vehicle: 1994 Honda del Sol VTEC (B16A3, with LS trans)

Alright guys, hopefully someone can yield some insight as to what the hell is going on here. First off, I should mention that I've had a distributor problem for a month or two - idle is kinda wacky and every once in a while i get CEL 9 (Cylinder sensor). I have a replacement cat, but I just haven't had the time to install it yet. I have no idea if this is related, but thought I'd mention it.

Anyways, this afternoon around 11 I headed out. Being so hot out, my motor was pretty warm, and had no problem going through the gears and hitting VTEC normally all the way through the power band. About 5 miles from my house, I'm cruising in 3rd at relatively high RPMs (but nothing crazy), and I downshifted to 2nd to pass a car. Should have still been perfectly within safe revving range. BUT, the instant I finished shifting to 2nd, it felt like the motor just completely crapped out.

From that second on, I had like NO power or throttle response, and the motor struggled pretty bad getting past 4,000 RPM. It was as if someone had flipped a switch, because it was so sudden and instantaneous. It sounds like its redlining and really pushing when I get to 4,000 and I cant get past 4,500 pretty much at all. In neutral, I can slooowly rev it up to around 5, but the motor does NOT sound like it wants to. Through third gear, I can only hit around 35mph.

I pull over right away and pop the hood... Fluids look relatively normal (though my oil is black and certainly needs to be changed). I disconnected the battery, unplugged the harnesses to the VTEC solenoid, distributor, MAP sensor, etc (and obviously plugged em back in). I checked all my spark plugs and they look fine. I pulled the fuse to reset the ECU. Pretty much did everything I could think of, and nothing helped.

I noticed the motor was running really hot for only having driven 5 miles, and not even all that spirited-ly. SOOOO I sat there for what felt like forever, had a friend pick me up to get lunch, and came back about 45 minutes later after the motor had some time to cool down. Same problem.

I had to run an errand that was gonna take me several hours, so I left the car in the parking lot and headed out in my buddy's truck. 5 or 6 hours, after a nice cool thunderstorm, I came back and cranked the car up again. Same issue, only this time it smelled like it was running a little rich cause I got a little whiff of fuel. Also, it seemed like the "redline" was closer to around 3,600 than 4,000, and I noticed that my idle was pretty low (400-500 RPM... but this could be the dizzy problem acting up). I drove home carefully with my buddy behind me, and parked my car, where its still sitting.

[ALSO - this actually happened to me once before, right after changing my oil. This was about 6 months ago. BUT after I had turned the car off for a few hours, I tried again and it was perfectly normal all of the sudden.]

NOW then, these are the only possibilities I've been able to think of...

1. Distributor - Since I've been having issues for some time, I figured this could theoretically be the cause. I wouldn't be surprised if the problem was electrical because it was so sudden.

2. MAP sensor - Because of an accident I had a number of months ago, my intake is pretty busted up, and is probably sucking in some relatively dirty air, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the MAP somehow got clogged.

3. Catalytic converter - Just seems like it might make sense that the cat might be clogged. Only problem is that it was so sudden, and its not like I was losing power over time. Maybe one of the plates inside somehow came loose? Its a relatively cheap cat but I just had it welded on at G&S roughly 6 months ago, so its pretty new.

4. Clutch? I have perfect pedal pressure and have no problems engaging the clutch or changing gears, but it just seemed like a possibility.

Honestly I'm pretty baffled as to what the hell is going on here... Can anybody give me some help? +reps if you're the type who cares about em... lol