they didn't have the ect at advance but autozone did. had to cross check the sku numbers to make sure of the correct part since everything is duralast there. the changeout I should be good with ill just refer to the chilton book. still waiting on the pressure tester... ill update when I get the parts in and pressure tester assembled

 

Just wanted to throw an update in here. I haven't gotten the parts changed over but it snowed today pretty hefty. I slammed the brakes and heard a winding grind sound coming from that general master cylinder area. Like a Kazoo sound or whatever that is called... one of those things you blow into and the pitch goes up and gets faster and dies after a second.... is that a Kazoo? I digress....

The hesitation thing doesn't seem to bother the engine when it's cold outside. But when it gets to above freezing outside it starts to act up. I'm convinced more and more that I've got a vacuum leak. Randomly died on me switching to neutral from drive getting coffee at the drive thru. I wish it would just get to tolerable warmness to take care of this crap...

 

The noise you heard may have been the ABS pump. If one or more wheels lose traction while stopping, the pump comes on and controls hydraulic pressure to the calipers/wheel cylinders to prevent brake lock up. ABS was an option in 1997, on 1998 and newer it was standard equipment.