OK, I was on my way to the beach yesterday and I noticed a loss of power on the freeway. I dropped down to 4th gear and accelerated back up to 80mph. BUt once back in 5th, I couldn't keep my speed up even with the gas floored.
A few seconds later, the engine shut off, luckily I had enouph speen to coast off the freeway and park in a legal spot. But my baby will not start back up.
the engine turns over, but won't start. I opened to hood and noticed smoke coming from the driver's side of the engine, more specifically around the timing belt cover.
It was dark, so I couldn't tell you what color the smoke was, but when I took off the valve cover, the small length of belt thet was visabble looked perfectly fine.
The car is about twenty miles away, so I'm about to hop on my ten-speed and ride over to check for a spark.
Any help will be greatly apreciated

 

This loss of performance and smoke suggests the timing belt has slipped and/or stripped.

Take the upper timing cover off and rotate the engine by counterclockwise by hand to TDC (single notch in the pulley lines up with the plastic pointer on the lower cover). Observe if the timing marks on the cam pulley line up. The word "UP" should be at the top, if it is at the bottom rotate the crank exactly once back to TDC again. The two slash marks on the side should be level with the top of the head. If these marks are out of time your timing belt has slipped and needs to be replaced.

You will need to bring a 10mm socket to remove the timing cover bolts and a 17 or 19mm (I forget which) socket with a decently long lever to rotate the engine.

 

If you happen to find that the timing belt did not slip (unlikely), then in addition to checking for spark, also listen for whether the fuel pump primes for a few seconds when the ignition key is turned to ON (II).

 

crank pulley bolt is a 17mm