Drove her after she sat for a day. Drove bout 45mins got something to eat then went to do a job. I have not had any drivability issues since Dave from St. Charles discovered water leaking into both wiring looms about 3 months ago. Probably put 5k on her since. Well today it abruptly felt like she was running on 2 cyclinders. After sitting 3 hours while i worked. She started and ran normal for about a min. Then sat 10 mins and she ran normal for another 15 mins then went sluggish again. It wouldnt turn off just ran rough and powerless. Drove her home bout 25 miles. No issues except slow. Tranny shifted slighty rougher but otherwise normal. Your thoughts.

 

Hi Chitown, please explain the water leaking into the wire looms where exactly was this occurring?
have the computers been inspected for water damage?
have any of the CE panel relays been opened or checked for water damage?

 

The CE panel i did a refresh on afterswards. The water came in thru the a pillar from the sunroof drain perhaps clogged. Washing her thru an automatic car wash almost daily for 2 months tooks its toll i believe. I never inspected the inside of the computers but see that as my next move. Since the leakage discovery ive put on like 5k in mileage so i wouldnt suspect the computers but now i must inspect to rule out. I looked at wiring looms again but they were dry. So no returning leaks were noted.

 

Hey Rich, I don't know, but could it be a vacuum issue?

 

I think if it were vacuum related it would be constant and shut off. Also it wouldnt just fix itself then crap out.

 

Rich, have you checked your coil wires for corrosion?

 

Seems like you need to sort out if it is fuel or spark related. Sometimes spark can come and go but I would put my money on fuel. Have you done anything with the fuel pump? Does the 88 have both an in tank and external pump? I seem to recall a problem developing on in tank pumps that would prevent fuel delivery intermittently.

 

I think you are very lucky that you do NOT have stock exhaust with the cat conv......otherwise it probably would have caught on fire from running on 4 cylinders and driving 25 miles !! It is still however very hard on the driveshaft in the torque tube to drive on 4 cylinders ( which is why the 944 has the rubber donut to protect the driveshaft from the pulsing) .
So look for an ignition issue which would cutoff 4 cylinders (two on each bank) . Bad coil wire connection, faulty exciter, rotor problem, use an inductive timing light to check for spark on the leads.

 

Heed Mr. Bailey's words.

If one coil is not firing, you are dumping raw gas into 4 cyclinders.

 

Interesting, Jim's comment brings to mind the ignition monitoring relay ... there's a thermocouple in an exhaust port on each cylinder head. If combustion stops (i.e. from an ignition fault) the temp drops and a signal tells the IM relay to cut fuel to the injectors on that side. As Jim says, that prevents a fire risk but puts the car into limp mode.

The original IM relays had a visible LED which would light up when fuel cutoff was invoked. So if it happens again and you can see the relay, that would help you see if that's the cause.

 

Ignition Monitoring System was not installed until MY89.

 

Better make sure all connections to your sensors, coils, MAF, ECU... etc are all clean and good. It sounds like poor connection somewhere stoping spark or fuel.

My 89 car randomly had weird low power issues too. It has not happened for a while since I replaced the old and rusty connectors to the senors on the thermostat area. Your issue sounds more serious as if you lost spark to 4 cylinders like one coil is failing or has bad connection at the coil wire or cap.

It's possible to have a bad distributor cap that is burned and not connecting 4 cylinders.

 

The car wasn't idling properly and Dave was trying to identify the issue. He pulled the connector on the Ignition Control Unit and found water inside. It wasn't just wet...there was quite a bit of water dripping. The connector had a blue/white film which leads me to believe that it was windshield washer fluid. All 3 of us were surprised that the car was even running. The unit was not taken apart…just dried. Cleaned up the connectors and the car began to idle better.

Rich,

I think the problem may be with the actual unit.

 

Without proper diagnostics, everything is just a guess. My guess is an intermittent fuel pump failure. Loss of power due to low pressure... intermittent because that is what mine did before it ultimately failed. If you agree with this theory, you need to hook up a fuel rail test gauge and check it next time it acts up. Just a thought, hope you get it figured out soon.

 

Would the smell of gas fumes after a fill up have anything to do with whats going on. The past few fill ups have netted in some noticeable gas fumes in cabin. This was not present before. Wondering if theres a relation.