At a loss here, so hope someone may have some wisdom to impart before I bring the matches to my '92 240 Wagon!

Have been chasing a "poor acceleration" ghost for probably 6 months now, have replaced fuel filter, 02 sensor, catalytic coverter, etc without too much luck. Car just never seems to accelerate well from a standstill compared to friends' 240 wagons, and my own previous 240's. Not a huge deal, as I am totally fine with characteristically sluggish 240 performance, but occasionally it will just bog down to the point where I KNOW something is very wrong. Very sluggish in the lower RPMs, but after a few seconds the lagging dissipates with RPM and acceleration is as expected. On one occasion this past winter, car simply would not respond the any throttle input--engine just bogged and shook if accelerator was depressed more than 1/10. Once the engine heated up, the problem dissipated (this has not happened since). Combined with less than ideal gas mileage (compared to other 240's), I thought I had received a gift from the Volvo gods when the car stalled/lost power for a split second the other day and the CEL lights up on the dash--surely this will lead to a code which will provide some insight and allow me to correct this problem once and for all!

On the same day the CEL light comes on (Code 144), the car stalls and dies while driving. After waiting a few minutes, car starts again after cranking longer than usual, stalls again a mile down the road. Wait a bit longer, car starts again and successfully makes it another 3 miles home where it now sits.

I have read Code 144 to mean "Fuel System ECU Load Signal", which as it turns out, is not a simple "replace this part" type of code I was hoping for, but rather a more ambiguous general heads-up that something is amiss, somewhere, probably in the ignition system. Great.

Searches for code 144 yield conflicting results--some say Ingition System Relay, or Injection System Relay, some Radio Suppression Relay (which I'm relatively certain that this car does not contain), bad Crank Position Sensor, bad ECU, bad ICU, etc. etc.

It seems there are so many possibilities, I'm not sure where to start. Car starts and runs fine now, but I'm afraid to have my wife resume use as it will likely leave her stranded.

So far, I've checked both the fuel pump relay (even though pump always primes when key is turned) and the "Radio Supression Relay" mounted to the ignition coil, which I'm sure is actually the relay for the AC auxiliary fan. Opened them up too see if I could find any obvious problems, both look alright (no broken connections, burns etc). I have cleaned the MAF, Throttle Body (as suggested by some forum, but assumed not to help). Don't have spare relays to swap in, but I'd assume if these were bad they'd likely not produce intermittent problems anyways, right?

Additionally, I have pulled the ECU and checked the voltage on harness pin 8 as suggested here-- http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=121971 (post #5), and did not the get .1v as suggested I should. Instead got something like .04 or .05 when grounded against the ecu bracket. The poster says if .1v is not read, then there could be a wiring problem or one of the control units (Fuel, Ignition) may be bad. I've looked for a .pdf Volvo Greenbook that verifies this to no avail and would rather not buy new ECU's before knowing if it is likely the problem. Testing other pins (like the diagnostic unit, which produces 11.6v) gives about the right voltage, FWIW. So with this supposed incorrect voltage output, should I be replacing the ECU, searching for some wiring issue, or what? I know for a fact that I will crush this car before tracing that little yellow and brown wire (pin #8) that is wrapped up with at least 20 feet of factory electrical tape for who knows how many miles from sensor to sensor, underneath the dash, etc.

Is .05v in place of .1v even a problem (considering the diagnostic unit produces .4/.5v less than specified as well)?

Sincere thanks for any insight which may be provided, as failure to diagnose this intermittent issue may otherwise spell the end of this car/driver relationship.