I'll start with my one question: Has anyone else ever seen injector wiring shorted out? (between fuse block and injector harness pigtail). Now for the story behind it.
So I bought a 1990 Firebird for the grand sum of $442 with the intent to get it running, repaint it, learn some along the way and maybe make a little cash selling it to fund my other car projects. Even though I plan to sell it, I've always had a soft spot for the 3rd gen's. I grew up with these cars.
Anyway, it didn't run. The guy told me he thought it was "something with the fuel injectors". Never mind that the pickup in the distributor was rusted to pieces, but it turns out there was a grain of truth in that tale. After replacing the distributor, plugs and wires, I did briefly get the car to fire up, but it would only run at WOT and black smoke (and some raw fuel) poured out of the exhaust. So it was running just a tad rich... Pulled the plugs and sure enough they were coated with black scuzz (except for the one that I'd accidentally broken, it was soaking wet with fuel). Next step was to pressure test the injectors (pulled the rail up a bit from the intake, popped the connectors off to remove power and turned the key on). Had one leaking injector (driver's side), replaced that from a spare set I have. Checked resistances, all were right on 12.4 ohms. Oh, I also turned the key on with the injectors connected and they just dumped fuel, wide open (no wonder it was running rich..) Checked the harness for signal, and the passenger side set was reading 0V, should read 12V if my research is correct (the other side did). I go check the fuse, and it was burnt out. Tested that line (pink and black from INJ #2 to the harness) and sure enough it was grounded out somewhere back in the maze of the wiring harness.
(A few side notes, the oil was so fouled with fuel that when I changed it out after the above steps, it poured from the pan like water. And at one point, with that oil, to try and clear the engine, I pulled the power to the injectors and cranked the motor, and even without fuel from the injectors, some of the cylinders were still catching... Fuel pressure after replacing the bad injector was just over 40 until the pump shut off, then it dropped to around 25 and stayed put)
Anyway, has anyone ever seen a short like that before? (I ended up cutting that wire out and running a new one. Got the engine to start catching, but didn't have time to fool with it much more because it was getting late and I didn't want to bother the neighbors as the car currently has no muffler attached...) I don't know if that is a common occurrence in these vehicles, or if it speaks to a bigger problem, or if it is just an isolated thing and I've found it and now the world is a happy place. And I'm guessing that having one set of injectors shorted out caused the PCM to freak out and tell them to just dump fuel instead. Thoughts?
All that for one little question... Any other comments are welcome. Just thought at the least I'd post this so if someone has a similar problem, they might get something out of this.