Pontiac Repair: 1988 pontiac trans am gta, mass air flow sensors, air flow sensors

Question
ive been having problems with this car off and on for awile i just spent 1300 on repairs and it still runs the way it when in it starts fine but when im driving it wants to start bucking and not running right at all. starts spiting and sputtering smells like gas so i try to keep it running by putting it in neutral and give it some gas and sometimes it catches up again but not with out a black smoke and some backfires the only reason im trying to keep this car around is that i got it from my brother who passed away so ive Got to keep it running good. can u please help me thank you very much for you time

Answer
Hey Grant:

these are a bit before My time in the delaership but I do remeber a few issues these had. The MASS Air flow sensors and the relay that ran the Sensor had issues. These engines had issues with fuel injectors leaking "running rich" and lastly they had all kinds of distributor issues. The timer core on the distributor shaft would go bad and actually break and become loose on the shaft and it would throw off the ignition timing. Also the Pick up coil in the distributors would break down and short out. The distributor is where I think I would look at first due to the backfire condition. Has any serice engine soon light come on? If so there is a code(s) stored and that is where I would start to look first. Good Luck :)

P.S. Those were pretty Cool cars back in the day I have a 1987 Monte carlo SS So I have a place in my heart for time line of cars from GM.