OT - b3 16v passat issues

[amalventano at sc.rr.com (Allyn)]

oh, by the way, i went for a drive and tried to get it to die again. it 
wouldnt die, but i was able to get some symptoms out of it - it basically 
seems to hit an artifical rev limit when winding up (under load) at ~4000 
rpm. to me it feels like a fuel flow issue. some of my reasoning as to the 
cause:

transfer pump - couldnt be - if it was, the reservoir would run dry and it 
would have complete fuel cut (not partial like its doing)

main pump - possible, it does run on the loud buzzy side at the moment. 
clearances in there could be pretty wide after 200,000 miles.

filter - possible, would restrict fuel flow even with a good pump. i would 
have swapped to diagnose further - only problem is that the fittings on the 
filter are about to totally fall apart, just like the main pump and 
accumulator.

Al