today when I checked under the hood I noticed the plate was down soon as I turned on the ignition it rose with the fuel priming, is it possible that the spring is weak?

May be an "internal" fuel leak. Check to see that fuel pressure holds after the car is shut off. The leaking component would be a leaking fuel accumulator or damper.

The last I remember, the car wouldn't start. Did you get that problem fixed? Did you ever get the ignition working? As far as the air plate being down, you can also add a leaking check valve at the output of the pump/pumps causing the pressure to drop.
I am not familiar with the 2.8 engine at all, never worked on one but the air plate in my 117 engine is always up, with or without fuel pressure. It has no springs, but does have balance weights that keep it up until the engine is started.

PaulM

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84 500 SEL (307,xxx miles)

Hello all I have found the cure for that plate dropping I took the unit apart and tried to reset the shaft that goes threw the arm that intern holds the plate, to no avail so I began to suspect the spring of being weak when I realized I could turn the bracket that the spring was attached to, after resetting that bracket the plate rose as it should, then I needed to reset the plate as it just touched the side wall. All is well now in that area. Next is to rebuild my test center so I can reset the plunger to roller contact point.