[ba] Lightning bolts in my engine

[Buchholz, Steven]

... yes, knock detection will light the MIL light on the IC intermittently,
so I would imagine that is what is going on.  Unless it is a serious case
there may not be any codes stored ... and I'm pretty sure that if a code is
stored the MIL light will come on solid.

As you suspect the problem may indeed be due to lifters, but it could also
be a bad knock sensor.  Some have reported that retorquing the sensor on the
side of the block fixes it back up (see Bentley for details on that
procedure) but in my case I had to replace the knock sensor to get things
back to proper operation.  The bummer about that is that the new knock
sensors have gold plated pins, so you have to install gold plated contacts
on the other end of the connector on the wiring harness for full effect.

Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)
 >
 >  Have you run the codes, what do they say?
 >
 >  Javad
 >
 >  >I've been having the engine light of doom come on
 >  >breifly now and then, but a bit more often lately. It
 >  >only happens when the engine is nearly warmed and I'm
 >  >accelerating slightly (less than 1 bar, ~3000rpms) on
 >  >the highway. I suspect that the bad lifters that I'm
 >  >about to replace are just setting off the knock
 >  >sensor, but does anybody else have an idea? It's a 86
 >  >5ktq with a 1.8 bar spring and jumpered fuel pump
 >  >relay.
 >  >-Brian