The bad news:

The new CPS did NOT work. All was fine for 20 miles today. Shut her off and had a coffee with some friends and when I started her up to leave, the CEL was back with the 342 again. A little more research this evening revealed some pretty scary news. One apparent issue that some research shows that can cause the trigger seems to be some bad internals, mostly due to "low oil". Well, I change and check my oil very often, and never seem to have any oil burn at all. Considering I drive my VX about 3k-4k miles a year, it still gets an oil change every 6 months at that rate. Never been low. Today though, I checked my oil and it was FULL, but dirtier than it has ever been. I mean DIRTY. Almost sludge. She makes a pretty awful sound at idle too and even lost power in acceleration. I fear some internals are damaged and causing more issues throughout at this point.

Preparing to send her off to the shop to let her get torn down. Only so much I am willing to do on my own. *shakes head*