please help.
yesterday i stopped to put in gas, and upon start-up i got a back fire through the intake and stalled.
i re-started and the car was running rough.
upon reaching home i noticed the CAT glowing red.
today i cut out the CAT and ran a straight pipe temp. thinking it was cloged, causing the problem,
but it is still running rough, any ideas would help.
thanks

have you replaced the plugs and wires yet?


are there any codes?

Moving to 87-91 for you...

there are no codes, and do you think a sudden change like that requires plugs and wires change

Well, the cat was definately clogged... but did it change any of the rough running? Intake pop means misfire... check plug wires, and while you are at it, check the resistance. If the car ran fine before, usually the plugs won't go bad that fast, but it sounds like you have spark jump. When you pull the wires off and reroute them, even if in the exact same clips and whatnot it will take care of the problem, but the best solution is to replace them.

the straight pipe did not help the rough idle, but i will take your advice and change plugs and wires. will let you know the results.

Dumb Girl Question.... could it be bad gas or condensation in the tank?

same thing happened when my sis was still driving the car, it would run like **** and all the power was dimming along with the lights, turned out to be one of the battery cables was loose, tightened it up, ran like a champ. sometimes the simpliest things cause comlicated problems.

not sure what that would have to do with the cat, maybe you stumbled onto a problem in the making

When the cat glows red, it is definitely junk to the max. It would have been a problem for sure at that point.

And I didn't say you had to change the plugs and wires, just pull the wires off, check resistance of them, make sure none are over 20,000ohms [2-5k for fronts, 8-15k for the rears is considered good]. If they all check out, then route them as normal, but during this if there is a spark jump usually this will take care of it. It happened to me once.. it'* just caused by old wires. If you wanted to replace the wires this would be a good time, and while you are at it you might as well do plugs... it'* only a few extra bucks.

first i want to thank everyone for your helpfull suggestions.
well i got the problem fixed. after a lot of thinking and keeping all the suggestions in mind, i changed the coil pack.
its seems the car was running on a few cylinders causing the rough idle and sluggish performance. it was also sending the unburned gas into the CAT causing it to ignite and make it glow red.
well i'm on the road again for now.
this was an odd fix, i've had coil packs died before ,shutting down the car totally, but never had about half a coil pack die and keep the car running (rough).

thanks again for everyone'* help.