A week ago my car threw code 42.Idled realllllly rough and would bog under sudden acceleration. Searched on here ,saw alot of posts saying to replace the ICM.Sounded good to me because in the middle of this past winter my icm went completely out and i swapped it out with the one from my GTA(that had sat for at least 5 years before i bought and i'm not done with yet so no harm with it being a "donor" car for a while)that appeared to be the original icm.Bought a new one from advance. Didn't help anything. A buddy of mine came over and we popped the cap off again,noticed a gunk buildup on the contact points so went and bought new cap and rotor.Put those on and no more code. Ran fine until yesterday roughly a week.

i was stuck behind some idiot doing 40 in a 55 on the lovely 2 lane highways we have here in Orange County and finally got to a passing zone with no oncoming traffic and gunned it and passed the guy.After i switched back to the proper lane i noticed the SES light on and it was running boggy the rest of the way home.Plugged in code scanner and surprise suprise code 42 was back.Didn't have time to mess with it last night and drove to work today .It was driveable and when i say driveable i mean better than without the SES on as f*cked up as that sounds.Not so much on the on the way home this afternoon; it died in front of a buddy's house on the highway and pulled in and tried to restart .It started but wouldn't idle.Hung out for a minute and went to restart and it idled and tried to head home and made it about 6 more miles and it died entering Orleans city limits where Hwy 37 becomes a 35 mph zone.I popped it in neutral and it restarted as i was coasting put back in to gear and went.Made it off the hwy and came to a stop sign it died again. Was cranking on it for about 10 minutes before it would start and took off again. Made it 5 blocks(2 blocks away from home) and it died at a stop sign on the square and wouldnt restart.Ran the battery down cranking on it.My gf showed up and jumped me and it fired up again and limped home.

I Got home and noticed a gas smell in the exhaust and then i checked plug wire connections,the est wire (brown/black),connection to the ecm,swapped ecm for a backup i have,also my tach quit working(not that it ever read right as long as i ve owned this car.Always acted like a v6 tach hooked to v8 but when hooked to a computer via aldl rpm ranges were right and not what the tach reflected).With the est wire unhooked or hooked up makes no difference at all with regards to when the SES light kicks on.There is a backfire that develops around 2500rpm(playing by ear as my laptop is in the shop atm).When the car starts its ~3 seconds on and the SES light kicks on. Every time it died i thought i smelled gas like it was running rich or something(impossible imho see below)

any thoughts ,suggestions,or know how is greatly appreciated as i suck with ignition /timing aspects of shadetree wrenchturning.



89 camaro rs
350 with 305 stock tbi ,ecm,injectors and 350 sensors where appropriate.(Was almost ready to chip it)
Stock fuel pump.

 

Have you run the code 42 diagnostics from the FSM?

http://www.chevythunder.com/est_code_42.htm

 

No i haven't .Thanks for that link