Ok so I went to and from the store to experiment...apparently if I drive my grandpa car like a grandpa, the cel wont come on, buuuut at about half throttle the trac off light will pop on first, then the cel will come on. distance, or time doesnt seem to make any difference since *** soon as I giveitenough gas to get ahead of traffic for a turn, or lane change its cel time. The weird thing is the code clears itself anytime the motor stops running and won't pop up unless I'm driving.

my searching had led me to o 2 sensor failure (the gas smell and tiny missfire confirmed this ) new o 2 sensors and I still have the cel although the gas smell and backfire is gone. I tried pulling the code at the shop with the scanner but it keeps saying code bank empty. there are also no symptoms and the car is running like a champ. what other component failures would lead to the cell and trac off light illuminating during certain driving conditions? also I looked up the self scan trick, but reading it made no sense. I'm more of a visual person so if someone could tell me what I'm supposed to be seeing and where it is throughout the steps of the self scan would be great

 

What year is the vehicle? If it's OBD-II, hook up a scan tool and take it for a drive and get the CEL to pop on while the scan tool is hooked up.

 

It's a 93 sc300

 

Also my obd 1 port is inside the car. the part of the self scan I am having trouble with is I don't know where or what e1 and te1 are in order to put jumper cables on them

 

Ok after a bit more investigating it appears I need to connect the two portions of the giant connector under the hood that plugs to nothing...can anyone confirm?

 

Yes, I can confirm this. In your under hood diagnostic port is where you'll find the terminals E1 and TE1. Those are the 2 pins you jump on OBD-I applications to pull codes.

 

Thanks for the reply. I got it to work and got the code