No choke/high revs when cold

[fixkick]

questions in order
1: does the CEL glow keyon (aka, SES or MIL, check engine light) service engine soon, etc. lamp, all are same, regardless of names.
2: when start engine does the CEL go out.?
3: when symptoms happen is engine fully hot, ?

Thanks for the detailed reply fixkick.

In answer to questions:

1: Yes
2: Yes
3: The symptoms go away after some driving, all though I feel like that the amount of driving is getting longer. Also, symptoms seem to be getting more profound. Used to be a bit of juddering, now it feels like fully cutting out (a bit like running out of petrol) - also, the misfire seems to stop once over 2500rpm.

Going to get the plugs out and take a look when I get chance, been a busy few weeks!

ok , what this is misfire, try new spark plugs/ this is always first thing with misfire.
get the spark good, and then hope for good fueling rates.

the ECU (TBI) on this car 1990 runs fuel only in many cases. in say Europe there are 8 engine classes, 2 block, 2 heads type , TBI, MPI and carb
and some have strand alone distributor, with its own ignitor and vacuum advance.
is yours with vacuum advance, if yes, then the ECU does not DO the spark, , only the distrib and coil do that, with mech, advance too.
later they switched to ECU spark and ECU advance, a big change,
once spark is ok.
one trick is to check spark advance at hot idle, if still timed right good if the came belt slipped, it retards, and the strobe light lands far to the right of spark scale retarded. huge. amounts, or gets worse as it slips more. (a does cylinder compression fall , and keeps falling x4) 170normal 80 on all is belt slipped.

the cam belt is a 100kmeter service. 100km. service point.

once all this is ok, then we work fueling issues.
top item is always, fuel pressure, (keyon 3times pressure then at idle pressure)

our 89/90 has vacuum advance like here.
see these parts."?
see part 11, this is the ignitor that need no ECU to work.
the advancing weights are below the "pickup coil plate" the pickup coil is a VR coil sensor. and is GAPPED, if the gap is wrong, it will misfire.
http://www.fixkick.com/IGN_timing/8v-real/89disty2.jpg

first i need to know exactly what distributor you have.
The above, distrib runs on fuel ONLY ECU.

cheers and good luck !