Well on the plus side you can take out your transmission and install the coupler, a new Constantine Torque Tube and Shaft and clean everything up. All in all it ends up being a good thing albeit expensive compared to a tow.

 

if you follow the link in post 2 it will answer most of your questions,
and provide the same pictures that others are posting

 

Pertinent pages from the bulletin describing the feature that was added in 1989+.

 

Nice post Greg thanks for the TSB.


FWIW it would be wise to spray some deoxit spray on the temp sensor connectors this may restore the proper function of the sensors, its just a bit difficult to get to the connectors but can be a very easy fix.

Also note that if you do see the engine running poorly IE not on all 8,
look under the car to see if your cats are glowing red you have about 3 mins of running from cold start till the cats will be glowing.
NOTE the cats will soon get hot enough to cause the body shutz to catch fire,
and or also ignite the leaking auto trans flex lines over the cats

 

The OP's '89, with the ignition protection module/relay, won't have the glowing cats or fire problem. The protection module takes care of that -if- there's a total failure of one of the ignition systems. That said, many owners treat the protection system operation as a problem, mostly when they can't figure out why it's operating. Unless the thermocouples in the exhaust manifold fail, the system is more likely to protect you than strand you. Any failure in one of the ignion systems, intermittent or not, can trigger the protection module while you are driving. Even a casual intermittent fault like an overheating final-stages module, arcing in a distributor cap, or water/contaminatoion of a coil wire will cause fuel flow to stop to the "protected" cylinders until the car is shut off and restarted. Rob's picture shows a jumper in the protective relay socket, used as a diagnostic tool. This is not a fix for a problem, only a mask for the protection system while you locate and cure the core issue. The protection system diagnostic procedure includes testing the integrity of the thermocouples. Those parts are expensive and can be a chore to change, but they are also pretty durable if you can avoid damaging them when performing other maintenance.

Bottom line-- if you notice your '89+ car dropping into 4-cylinder mode after it's been running for a few minutes, check the relay's LED indicators to see if it's protecting your car from a cat fire. If it is, find out what's causing the temperature imbalance that's tripping the protection, be it ignition (most likely cause) or perhaps a clogged injector. Use the bypass jumper wisely, at idle, to give yourself a chance to use an IR temp gun to find cylinders that aren't firing well. If all four on one system aren't firing (verified by the temp gun, not from watching a spark from a wire) fix the weakness in the ignition. Don't drive the car until it's fixed.

 

The car is in my garage.. Let's lower the drama. I'm running the car for a second to check the problem, not a drive home from far off.

So if ignition modules fail, would I get spark to all 8 with no problems as I seeing? The flame coming out of the end of the spark plug wire after I pull them from the head on every cylinder is arcing around the Beru connector by 3 inches with super powerful energy. This seem like a FUEL problem, not spark. When I pull the #5 and #8 plug wire, no change if poor running, as tho no fuel is delivering to 5 & 8.

I'm going to start checking the exhaust sensor and injectors. Maybe they are frozen from 2 months of sleeping in the garage. Going to check MAF connectors too.

 

plan of action should be to check the relay LEDs first before you touch anything this will let you know where to proceed

 

Just to clear something up which hasn't been explained above..

Limp Home Mode is not bad for your car, unlike running on 4 cylinders, which creates nasty harmonics due to the uneven firing order, and can damage your crank.

Limp Home Mode = something the LH (fuel) ECU does when the MAF signal goes out of spec, and the ECU just uses a fixed-width injector pulse, so you can move the car (although I defy anyone to actually drive home in this mode.. its about good enough to get you off the side of the road).

Running on 4 cylinders = when the ignition system has failed somewhere along the line i.e. wires, caps, rotors, coils, ignition amplifiers, ez-k, and ignition monitoring system (yes, it can fail in a couple of ways too leading to the same symptoms).

Anyway - whilst I think looking at the ignition monitoring relay is interesting, just be wary of it having failed in its own right. If a green or red light comes on, I would still then jumper the relay socket and see if it fixes the problem, and if not, actually test for spark on a spark plug wire off each distributor, and then test back up the chain as required.

 

Ok.. So here is what I've found:

1) Cap, Rotor and plugs are only a year old. 2K miles on them but all the plugs are fairly fowled. 2 or 3 have some white on the center but most of them are black.

2) Cap on the driver side is oily inside. Seems some oil got in there. Likely from PS area was leaky.

3) coil wire on drive side is reading 2K ohms. Seems high? Coil seems to be firing and arc is coming out with coil wire off. Don't really know if that mean anything. It could be firing buy maybe the spark is low in current and heat range is poor, or the coil wire is old and not conducting well to the other 4 cyl.

4) Green light is coming on seconds after starting the car. IMS is coming on for sure due to something wrong either with.... drive side coil, coil wire and/or failing distributor cap.

I put 8 new plugs in, NGK copper... Not much change. Slightly better running but still Green lighting from IMS system. So, I'm going to replace the cap and rotor tomorrow first. Only because one is avail at the local shop. Then I probably should see if Bill Ball has an extra coil or something. (he's just down the road from me and has a 89 car) Wires are testing correct ohms but who know if they are original. I only had this car for 4 years now. The car did run strong before it sat for 2 months. So bad wires seems a stretch. I think it's the coil, cap or coil wire and the spark is weak to the whole network from that cap.

 

Unplug the ignition amplifiers and swap the connectors around - they're under the plastic cover just in front of the headlight bar on the front left of the car.

If the red light comes on instead, then your problem is a failed amplifier (they're a relatively common cause of the ignition monitoring system triggering). Currently, the problem is affecting the distributor on the left side of the car (front end of the 5-8 side of the engine), as that's what a green light means (red led means right-side of the car), so if the problem is a failed amplifier, then swapping connectors should move the problem to the other distributor.

Its unlikely a dirty rotor/cap is the problem, unless the casings are actually cracked.

 

If after following Hiltons advice and no change,
then spray some Deoxit into the connectors of the sensors and retest.

One other thing,
make sure that your coil wires are not touching any metal along their run,
if they have been then the coil wire may be compromised,
and could be checked by running the engine in the dark, look for arcing

 

Rotating a malfunctioning exhaust temp sensor 90* will sometimes help...

 

Shoot the rnning exhaust manifolds with a temp gun to see if there is in fact a difference. I'm gun-shy about spinning the thermocouples unnecessarily if at all possible. I figure I have as much chance of screwing up a good old one by twisting it as I do having one come back to life.

 

Problem(s) found:

1) Spark wires 6/7 on driver side distributor cap were switched. Bill Ball and his crafty ways explained how the timing belt cover conveniently shows which cylinder number for which wire goes to the correct place. I obviously put them on wrong after TB replacement. BTW, the timing belt job was surprisingly easy. The hardest part was cleaning the oily mess on the engine, oil neck, oil pump, PS pump and under the radiator area from leaks which I fixed most of and will do the rest.

2) coils are good but coil wires are 1.8K ohms on the passenger side, 2.2k ohms on the driver side. Both seem to be a bit high. I think they are to only 1k ohm. So half the spark plugs are mildly fowled the other 4 are moderately fowled. The wires to each cylinder are at 4K each, so those seem ok.

3) oil got into the drive side distributor cap. I must have spilled oil and it got into the cap. I replaced the entire thing to be sure.

Car runs like a champ gain. No green light. No rough running. Thanks Bill Ball for the input!

 

Glad you got it sorted out !! now enjoy the car