Senor raidman,

Just my 2 cents worth, mind it's been a difficult holiday with difficult family members living a way different lifestyle (i.e. they live on big bucks, "beat" on their machinery, rely on "professional" mechanics and have no problem w/$300/mo. car note.)

Seems to me that well constructed items with few moving parts (as in the Bosch FI computers in the 2 83 240s i've owned) should be, in amerikanese, "bulletproof". Just went up to the attic, have a LH jetronic computer, no ending in 503 and an AMM from the same '83 242. Both parts have exact same nos. as what's on my present '83 245.

My father worked for IBM back in the 60s when computers took up entire rooms and needed a/c units the size of a semi trailer. Things had come a long way by '83; my ladyfriend's '81 244 w/ a "simple" computer for the lambda system only works a-1 as well.

I suspect that all these so called failures of the brains in the FI systems were due to neglect,as in the AMM got too hot because of the pre heater flap getting stuck closed or because some fatso sat in the passenger's seat wearing big galoshes and gave that nice German computer a kick in just the right spot sending a voltage spike or some such. Or perhaps something as simple as crossed wiring under the hood, performed under condition of a breakdown when nearest mechanic was trained on '72 Novas?

There is an '83 242 in a nearby boneyard (not a fact to be snuffed at here in the rust belt, stuff >10 yrs old gets crushed) your post makes me want to run over there so I can buy the comp. for 5 bucks, test it for "GOODNESS", then peddle it for 100 bucks or more. Time are tough here in NE OH, esp. for repairing rust damage in 2 240s in 15 degree weather.

Francisco