so i traded my 88 2.8l camaro for a 87 formula with a 350 TPI swapped in with the 5 speed tranny.... point being is i drove it home and it ran great for the first day. then i start driving it the next day and all of a sudden my SES light starts flashing (almost strobing) and the car starts running like crap, i mean it was literally jerking me back and forth with a lot of force and then pretty much the second i put the clutch in (like coming to a stop) it would die, now the wierd part is is that after it would warm up for a little bit or even if the SES light was actually on it ran great, any ideas..... i guess it was throwin the code 42 for electronic spark timing and a code 46 for airflow sensor burnoff but i live in a smallish town and the theres only one place around here that can check OBD1s and he had no idea what i should do.....

 

A fast flashing SES light means that the ECM can not properly read the PROM. Without being able to read the PROM the ECM goes into limp mode, which is why it ran so bad.

First thing is to drop the ECM and remove the small cover (top center of ECM). Pop the MEMCAL out and carefully reseat it. Hopefully the issue will go away. If it doesn't then either the MEMCAL is bad or the ECM is bad.

RBob.

 

Thanks a ton. Thing is though... I'm not a real experienced kid so I have no idea what PROM or MEMCAL is haha nor do I have any idea where that stuff is... Anymore help with that would be awesome.

 

Up in the sticky's on this board is a thread that shows pictures of the MEMCAL, PROM and so on.

ECM is under the dash on the passenger side. Remove the hush panel (if equip'd) and it is the silver aluminum box with two connectors on it. If a re-man the box may have been painted black. IIRC there is a screw or two that needs to be removed to drop it down.

RBob.