Great that you're at this stage. I'm chuckling at your fuel/fuel gauge situation. ("You're out of gas, man," it's saying, and you're thinking, "What's wrong with this dumb gauge?") Nobody else ever has problems like that, least of all me, you know. Rrright! Maybe the initial timing could be advanced, a couple of degrees at a time, to address the take off concern. No codes is usually a good thing, but sometimes you wish for one to tell you what's wrong. Some years/makes with cable driven speedometers mounted the VSS at the speedometer, others with electronic speedometers put the VSS in the trans where the speedo cable, formerly used, was installed. I don't know what 91 Astrofaris did, but a parts lookup in the Rock Auto website would be informative.