yeah. The basics are easy to test:
fuel residue in the cylinder. Crank it with the coil disconnected, remove plugs, inspect. No fuel there, release the pressure valve on the fuel rail. no fuel there, check the pump. End.
Spark. Remove the plug from the cylinder, attach to the wire, and have a friend crank it. Ground the plug cathode to the engine . No spark, remove plug and use screwdriver to complete circuit from the wire to the block BEFORE YOUR HAND. You'll prolly get hurt doing this one. I've done a million times, so I understand. Ignition timing is checked on the cylinder with a timing gun, always (even in a distributorless system)
Air. Not much you can do to check it - just make sure there is no squirrel living in the manifold, that the throttle cable is hooked up to the butterfly, and it opens. The two sensor systems around this are the MAF / MAP and TPS. Beyond that is the O2 sensor, which has been connected to a warning light since 1972.
If you have those 3, then it's time to check timing. When installing the timing belt on a twincam motor, it's important to turn it a few times and then check it again. Everyone 1 revolution of the main pulley should turn the cam pulleys twice. Get a few manual rotations out of it and check it again. This is a common failling of the backyard enthusiast installing DOHC timing equipment. The CAS (Cam Angle Sensor) is on the end of one of the cams, It has a magnetic pickup in it, and the cam has a marked magnet area, or it's keyed and that key has a magnet in it (The B18). It moves just like the distributor. B18s can be forced to accept the CAS key in the flipped way (The mis-fit is tougher, and usually ends up breaking the CAS)
If a modern engine runs only when giving it throttle (Holding the pedal, and if you let go it stalls out) because the TPS is out of adjustment (It usually has 20 degrees of rotation, and needs to be calibrated) or if you're building a performance engine, the exhaust may be too restrictive (Rare).
O2 sensors never go bad. If you have a "bad" one it's been melted to a point where the sensor is shorted out (and will run rich as hell). To test an O2 sensor, remove it and bring to the workbench. Attach a multimeter to the outputs (if it's 2 wire, if it's 4 then find the two output wires. Trial and error on that) . Take a MAP torch to it, and make it hot. As the heat goes up it should start reading low (.01 volt) and then up to about .18 volts. .14 volts is reading for Stoich.
ECU diagnosis isn't too easy. It's just good to keep a known good one around.
The rest of the sensors will give an OBD warning, and shouldn't prevent the car from running. Your local autoparts store can tell if your ECU is good, but they may require the car to be onsite which sucks.
