So, the car got put back together around midday yesterday, after much detailing of hard-to-reach engine stuff, the spark plugs were indeed factory original, and two of them had nearly seized up...whew, close call there...once verything got back together she fired up great, but was stil lrunning the same, albeit the idle wasn't as bad and throttle response was better.

MAF sensor arrived in town early this morning, the girlfriend (who doesn't ahve to go in to work till this afternoon) is gonna bpick it up and I'll install it after I get home. oughta take jsut a minute or so.

 

well, it wasn't the MAF sensor...

gonna check the distributors like I should ahve when I had the covers off...

*pulling hair*

 

OK, 'nother update.

Replaced the distributor caps and rotors, the rotors looked like they had been sitting in an acid bath, they were so corroded. At this point I've replaced the plugs, plug wires, distributor stuff...

Took it for a test drive last night, and noticed something that made me want to slap myself into submission.

Both my cats are glowing orange, and it(the glow) extends to the O2 sensors and a little bit beyond .

@#$%^&*(*&^%$# !!!!

is it possible all this was brought on by some clogged/partially clogged catalytic converters?

And another important question, how do I test my o2 sensors to make sure I didn't bake them to death?

EDIT: Nver mind...I lsot my patience with this thing and took some time out of work during lunch to take it to a hobby shop on base (MCAS Yuma), ripped off the exhaust and immediately found a destroyed catalytic converter. The honeycomb material was falling out of it as I took it off the exhaust manifold. Needless to say, problem discovered. On a side note...did you know you can make an LS400 sound like a poorly tuned high-performance truck simply by removing its exhaust and running open headers?

 

yes, i tried it when i had my exhaust made

 

lol...thanks for the laugh, I really needed it. Man, what a *insert long, drawn out expletive here* day.