Anyone know their Audi/VW 30V V6s?

[DieselPaul]

I have a 1999 Passat 30V now. It idles kind of rough and if you rev it to say 1,500rpms and hold it, it will buck up and down like 2-300 rpms. When you drive it it will buck a under load and if you go full throttle you don't get much power.

The car is throwing a P1545 code, which I understand to involve the throttle body.

I tried the door open hood open TB reset thing, I didn't hear the TB doing anything.

The car will free rev up, but once you get near 3k it sounds kind of sick and I didn't want to wind the crap out of it not knowing the problem .

I have an OTC scan tool, so not VAG-com or anything good, its a really nice scanner... from 1999 but it will do Generic OBDII, my TPS is reading 0.00% all the time. Is it possible my TB is messed up or something? When in drive and driving 10% and 100% throttle (guessing on my foot position, scanner always shows 0%) the car will accelerate the same and doesn't seem to want to rev above 2k and go much faster. It does shift into second though.

Another possible issue, once when the car was idling it randomly went from showing 190* on the gauge to showing zero. And then today my scanner at one point showed a ECT (engine coolant temp) number of -40*, I unplugged my scanner and tried and again it showed 190-192* and the gauge showed the right thing from then on. Didn't know if maybe a coolant temp sensor could keep the car in some rich warm up mode.

I DID replace the valve cover gaskets, they were dribbling, I was told to hope the spark plug tubes were leaking and that could fix it but, they were fine. I pulled the plugs, they looked a little rich, but not worn at all. They were NGKs, so someone replaced them.

Someone redid the vacuum lines on the top of the motor though, the car has 115k, I was told it was replaced at some point. Is there a 2.8 30V vacuum diagram so I can make sure that it is all routed correctly?

Thanks!

Side notes, the car does not run hot, does not blow white/blue/black smoke, etc. Something is just messed up, its not like the motor is just wiped out or something.