As of today I finally figured out what was wrong with my TPS sensor. The original plug, which was internally fractured/shattered from a previous goon in the cars past wasn't making consistent contact with the sensor. The ECU, as a result placed the car into safe mode. I obtained a Mazda wire harness from another make/model Mazda and found that it contained the same plug but different color coded wiring. No problem. I Simply used it as a replacement and soldered it in. I must have been tired when I installed the new female pins because I later discovered that I had the sequence backwards. Once I corrected this mistake the “check engine” light went out when I cycled the ignition key. At that point I disconnected the battery to erase the error codes ( #’s 12 & 18 ) stored in the ECU, checked the diagnostic bus to confirm I had cleared the trouble and when I cycled the key again I got a normal dash display upon engine start-up. Problem solved!