It's the general consensus that the problem with my car is a vaccum leak. To this end I replaced all the injector seals, inspected the vaccum hoses and applied a healthy dose of gasket sealer to the upper intake.



The car still does exactly what it did before. IE Starts, runs up to 3k then sputters and dies. If you hit the accelerator to stop it, it chokes and dies.



I am going to get a small can of propane and start checking buuutt out of curiosity how much of this lovely emssion control stuff can be removed without the ECU having a heart attack and dying? Less hoses = less possible leaks. =)



Also checking the Air Flow meter and a few other odds and ends, I'm starting to wonder if it's the wiring harness or if I'm just totally loosing it or missing something really easy or some combination of the three.



Also starting to wonder about the ignition system. The 2ndary igntion was arcing when I got the car so I promptly replaced the plugs and wires.



If you've managed to read down this far, the shop manual mentions a variable resistor that's "tamper proof" (HA!) and it's job is to send a signal of some sort to the control unit. I'm wondering if anyone has tampered with this in the past and/or knows what to look for? I'm thinking the previous owner was pretty desperate and did anything they could think of to fix it.



Hey, that's starting to sound familliar.... :smilewinkgrin:



Hope to have this one running before my 79 gets here. Nice thing about the 1st gen, there's nothing to em really.

 

It sounds like an AFM problem.

 

That's what I figured but the AFM checks out fine according to the specs in the manual. I think I'll check the ECU connectors for it on the off chance that the wiring harness between the AFM and the ECU is shot.



That would really really suck.

 

Are there any leaks in the inlet duct between the AFM and TB?

 

Are there any leaks in the inlet duct between the AFM and TB?[/quote]

It's screwed down really tight, but I've not checked for it with the propane.



I did get a timing light and checked the timing which was majorly off. When I went to check the 2ndary coil to see if it was firing, neither of them were firing at all.



Is this normal behavior or are the 2ndary coils shot? They check out OK ohm wise but I have no clue how to test the ignitor (No I don't want to put it in my mouth and turn the car over thanks )

 

Are there any leaks in the inlet duct between the AFM and TB?[/quote]

It's screwed down really tight, but I've not checked for it with the propane.



I did get a timing light and checked the timing which was majorly off. When I went to check the 2ndary coil to see if it was firing, neither of them were firing at all.



Is this normal behavior or are the 2ndary coils shot? They check out OK ohm wise but I have no clue how to test the ignitor (No I don't want to put it in my mouth and turn the car over thanks )[/quote]

You can also check the trailing timing. It's just the same as checking the leading timing, except that you want the pointer to line up with the yellow mark instead of the red mark. If you just want to check for spark just put the inductive coil around the trailing wires.



The car will still run ok without trailing ignition. So that's probably not your problem. Check for a leak between the AFM and TB. There are somehoses under that duct that people sometimes miss.

 

If it proves to be a wiring harness problem, let me know. I've got the entire harness(motor, dash, interior,etc) out of my '88 left over when I did the transplant...I'll hook ya up...