This is a great place for F-bodies. Anyone know where I can go for discussion about my daily driver, a 1988 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight Regency Brougham with a 3.8L?
For a long while it sometimes would run kind of smothered upon startup but soon clear up if I let it sit for a couple minutes or if I drove down the road it would soon straighten up almost with the click of a switch. Recently I started it to come home from work and it was running smothered and weak and it never cleared up. It runs like it's straining and has great loss of power.
It intermittedly acts like it will clean up for a second and run right (with a jolt) but then goes back to running bad.

It's an original survivor and almost nothing has been done to it. I've been running 87 octane in it for years which has ethanol junk so that may be part of the problem?
Check Engine lights been on for years but it's OBD1 so I don't have a scanner.
Sorry to ask here, but this is a great community and I figured car people might know where to turn.

 

Chassis wise, TGO isn't going to be much help. As for the engine, it's just another GM similar to every other GM in that era.

My first suggestion is to find out what code is that's turning on the engine light. Without knowing that, you're just throwing a dart at a dart board guessing at what to fix. Take the car to a local parts supplier. Most will scan the car for free.

 

As Alky wrote, it uses one of only a handful of GM ECMs used in everything during that era. The conventions are all the same. The '88 Buick 231 V-6 is nothing unusual. Late '88s and '89-up had sequential injection, but that's not likely a problem since it reportedly runs normally once it is at temperature. Common problems on those are the ICM, cam and crank position sensors (and the interruptor flags on the balancer), coil packs, weak O² sensors, head/intake coolant leaks, and a few other nuisance issues.

I've also been running everything on "ethanol junk" since about 1976 with no problems. It isn't the fuel, unless the fuel is otherwise contaminated or stale.

A scannner is only necessary if you don't have a jumper wire, paper clip, or some other means of shorting two pins in the ALDL.

 

Thank you very much. It's not even a third gen and you guys took the time to help. Yeah since it's the mass produced "corporate/buick" engine my hope was that there is lots of experience out there dealing with them. I was guessing some type of sensor because it used to clean up like turning on a switch but now runs bad all the time under load, except for brief moments where it acts like it will clean up and run right. It's old and has oil leak on the engine and coolant blow back from the radiator that gets on the engine too so maybe that contrinbuted. Not enough of leak to pool on ground or smell when running but the engine is messy.
I also noticed there is dark scum around the fuel cap filler area??
I'll start with trying to determine if it has triggered a code and maybe that will narrow things down to a failed senor. I am hoping not to spend a lot of money on a car that isn't worth much but it's been a great car

 

Kinda sounds like it's secondary ignition related to me , have you changed the spark plugs ?

 

No I have not changed the spark plugs. I did change the wires a few years ago. It idles ok, not great, revs pretty good and smooth in neutral but drives like garbage under load now except for internittent moments where it smoothes for a sec and acts like it will straighten up and run right