Can you define 'running like crap' a bit better?
Is this a prob you hoped to fix with a starter and solenoid, or a problem that cropped up afterwards?

on a car that old many of the vac lines are probably dry rotted, bad and leaking.

as to emmissions stuff...for the most part, removing it won't make the car run better, and may make things worse. many things (the vac lines for example) are more control thatn anything else - so that things only happen once that car is warmed up for example, to messing with it without knowing what you are doing can make a car run terrible. New cars have all this same crap, it's just now computer (elec) controled instead of vac controlled.

chris