Start up woes

[Povi]

I've owned a few of these beauties before and just recently picked up my latest one being a '97 manual CL. All of a sudden I started her up and on each try it turned on perfectly but revs stalled out. After about 4 times it held an idle well but every time I pushed the pedal down the revs would drop to near-stall after revving. And when I tried to take off it would stall before rolling.
I'm horrible with electrics and EFI stuff I've been working on old cars for too long, but I was wondering if it could be the MAF being dirty? Or potentially even the ECU having a freak out?

[camhaz]

The CL doesn't have a MAF mate. More likely to be a vacuum leak somewhere. Check all tubing and joints for signs of suction. Also the rubber flange that joins the injection unit to the inlet manifold has a habit of splitting. Wobble the injection unit to see if there is excessive movement possible, and even start the car and wobble it to see if the engine running characteristics change.

[Povi]

I had a look around tubing before the manifold and could not find any splits or loose bits, but I found two things that i thought probably werent right:



The plug in the back of the throttle body was burnt out. May or may not be related but still it cant be that good?



Also this line, which comes out the back of the bottom of the air box, was freely hanging at the other end, and I could not directly see where it should have gone. Is this a vacuum line?

[camhaz]

The burnt out plug is for the manifold pre-heater, which aids cold starts by warming up the air in the inlet manifold.

The line that is missing connects to the back of the plastic plenum on the top of the injection unit. This is most likely the cause of your issue as this will be letting a constant flow of air into the back of the injection unit. This line operates the flap in the bottom of the air cleaner box and should be fixed as it will be always pulling hot air off the exhaust manifold even when the engine is warm.