3.2 Mondial down on power, flooding, glowing red cat

I started my 88 3.2 Mondial on Wednesday evening. Previous drive had been a week and a half before and it performed fine then. The car started fine on Wednesday, and I let it warm up for between five and ten minutes. After warming up for a bit, I backed out of the garage and pulled out of the driveway. The engine was seriously down on power. I drove around the block. I pulled back into the driveway and it nearly stalled three times getting back into the garage. I popped the engine cover and smelled gasoline. I stuck my head under the car and saw that the catalytic converter was glowing red, so I shut it down.

Today, I've checked the coils and the spark with a timing light. I've got good spark through all the wires, and I'm pretty sure I'm not down a cylinder. Still, the engine is flooding with gasoline and after even five minutes, the cat was glowing red again. I took the cat off to see if it was clogged. It's nearly brand new (2 years old, hyperflow). I did discover that the thermocouple is not intact; maybe that explains why my cat was glowing red and I didn't get a slow down light.

After a search on FChat, I decided to disconnect the cold start injector and try it out. I disconnected it, ran the car around the block. It was fine. I reconnected the injector, and right away the car lost power again, I didn't even make it down the street before it stalled. But when I tested the switch, it seems to be working correctly: 12V to the cold start injector when the starter is engaged, 0V as soon as the starter disconnects. So I thought maybe the cold start injector is faulty, or leaking, so I pulled it and the nozzle was wet and had soot on it. I left the cold start injector out of the plenum, but reconnected the switch. I taped the injector's housing to prevent a vacuum leak. Then I taped the injector into a plastic bottle and drove the car again. It ran fine. I was trying to see if there was any fuel coming from the cold start injector. I got nothing, but by then the water temp was up, so I think I'll have to wait until it gets cold enough again for the thermo-time switch to activate the cold start injector, and see if it does it then. If the cold start injector were leaking, would it leak only when water temp was low? Or whenever the engine is running?

Anybody have any ideas for diagnosis? Anything else I should be looking for or doing?

 

Thanks everybody for your help. I believe the problem is the cold start injector itself. I drove it four times this morning. First, the cold start injector did inject additional fuel upon cold start up. I kept the cold start injector isolated in a plastic water bottle. There was not a lot of fuel in the bottle, and the injector itself does not seem to be leaking fuel while I'm driving. However, when it is bolted into the plenum, there is vacuum from the plenum, and I'm thinking that the vacuum is the pulling fuel from the injector. With the cold start injector isolated, the car ran perfectly.

My frequency valve is buzzing, so I don't think the protection relay is the problem. Mike, thanks for offering me your old protection relay. If my problem crops back up or something else makes me think I haven't hit on the correct solution, I might just ask you to send me the old one.

Andy, I don't think the thermal switches are the culprits at the moment since the cold start injector switch tests correctly with the multimeter.

Dan, my plug extenders all seem in good shape. I haven't lost a bank (or even a single cylinder), but the engine was flooding with fuel so it seemed more like a fuel injection issue to me than an electrical or ignition issue.

Thanks everyone. I think I've found the problem. I will post more if I find anything else out.