Ok, closer still... now it displays the manufacture for all the items that have the same manuf as the last item in the list.
this code also displays the manufacture id number "manid" to help me identify what id is with what product
Code:
{if $products[product].manufacturerid ne "0"}
{assign var="manid" value=$products[product].manufacturerid}
manid is {$manid}
{section name=id loop=$manufacturers start="0"}
{if $manid eq $manufacturers[id].manufacturerid}
{$manufacturers[id].manufacturer}
{/if}
{/section}
{/if}
you can see what this looks like
http://www.yarnsmith.co.uk/xcart/home.php?cat=3
the first item's manufacture is Katia manid=6