It is 10 degrees out side in boston and my cfi is running great smooth

The ecm on cfis are very dumb so I woud not be surprised if your check engine light does not come on

I'm hating this cfi right now...bought a new ECM, plugged it in and jack squat. Same bull as before. I'm positive the ECM has power and ground...

The 1982 cfi ecm and the 1983 cfi ecm are two different ecms. What part number is the ecm you got

Was looking in the service manual and they are for sure supposed to go on when the key is in the second position, and I have a 84 Corvette and the ecm fits like I believe it should. According to the service manual, I either have a faulty ecm or connector, but neither of which seem like the problem as how does a connector go bad and the ecm is brand new. Also, I checked the 450 and 450r grounds in the backpins of the connector, is that alright? Here's the flow chart.

I checked for voltage to the check engine light and both terminals are grounded. Which terminal is supposed to be grounded?

Unplug ECM one ground should be gone other side should have 12V.

It appears like none of the lights are getting power except the security light. When I put 12v to the circuit a relay clicks in the engine bay and the lights all turn on but it still does not start...interesting.

What relay is that?

What relay is that? Maybe a problem with the anti theft system?

The anti theft system clicks when it's activated though, on my car at least. The relay is underneath the front left headlight right by the carbon canister.

I think it might be the canister purge solenoid...but how would that make sense?

Looked at my Camaro wiring diagram the 10 amp gauges fuse in fuse box feeds the purge solenoid. When I pull the fuse it kills my check engine light also. Either that fuse is blown or your feed from the ignition switch is no good. One other thing I recommend when chasing any electrical gremlins is to check ALL THE FUSES for blown/missing no matter how it's labeled in the fuse box.

It was the magnetic pickup coil in the distributor that was the problem, and somehow the check engine light came back on as well. However, when I start my car if it doesn't 'catch' by the 2nd or 3rd turn over it floods the manifold. It seems as if it could be just the driver side injector, or maybe that side of the manifold is just the lowest point, either way there is 3/16" worth of fuel sitting there.

Sure - the pickup would leave you without a reference for the injectors. I wish I had mentioned that to you in the beginning. I swapped mine out when I did the ICM to eliminate it as a cause.
As far as the hard starting issue, did you set the timing? It should be set with the EST bypass disconnected to 6 degrees. BTDC.

The weirdest part of the whole pickup thing was that the magnet above the pickup was broken into 4 pieces, really odd that a magnet would suddenly break like that. And yeah, timing is set. It's not necessarily hard starting, if I press the gas 1/4 to 1/2 way down it starts the moment I twist the key.

You have a strange car. No way changing an ignition pick up will fix a check engine light problem. At least you got it started.

I don't think it was the magnetic coil that fixed the light, I think foraging around the wiring near the radio fixed some sketchy connection back there, but i'm not positive. I aired out the manifold and today the engine started fine without incident. Only thing is, battery isn't charging. I put a 50ohm resistor inline to the exciter wire to the alternator branched off of the radio switched power input.