I'm getting 2 trouble codes:

Code 16 Lo Res Failure
Code 36 Hi-Res Failure

What do they mean?

Car was running great on the freeway. All of a sudden I hear a couple of backfire, car lost power for a quick second. Power came back almost right away but the SES light came on. Drove it the rest of the way home and it feels fine.

Started the car again and the SES light went off. Still able to pull the codes with FreeScan. Good ol' FreeScan.

 

It would appear that you left one important detail out of your signature. The fact that your PCM had to have been changed to an OBDI unit to be showing a 16 and 36. Since these are not OBDII codes which are used in 96.

Those 2 codes deal with the feedback signals from the internal optical encoders within the distributor. Disconnect it at the opti and look for corrosion or some other connection problem. Also unplug it at the other connection about 2 feet further up the harness and check there as well.

There are 4 wires in the harness that goes to the distributor. Power, ground and 2 wires that carry the hi and low res signals. Since you were dropping both signals, chances are that the power or the ground was actually dropping out. Since I doubt both the optical encoders went south at the same time.

If you find the common corrosion problem, it would be advisable to change both sides of the corroded connection. ie opti and harness.

 

Damn, busted. Yes, I did change over to OBD1.
My optispark was corroded because the car was sitting for a year.
I took an older opti that took a crap before and made one good opti out of it.
The wire that goes into it was corroded as well. So I bought a wire off a board member but he negleted to state the wire had a broken clip.
I'm thinking the wire must be loose from all the vibration. I'll give it a little push.


Strange how it's running fine now.

 

Any corrosion has to be replaced at both mating surfaces. That means the wire side AND the opti. Since you can't simply change out the connector on the opti, that means the opti has to be replaced. If not, the corrosion will continue and the same problem will occur again.

I'm not sure why they corrode sometimes but that's the best you can do.