Need some help figuring this out

Don't overthink. 85--86 is simply the magnet coil for the relay. Only caveat as I said earlier is if it has a spike diode internally. This makes it polarity sensitive. So normally 85 is ground or through a control to ground. Many of the EFI modules control in this manner because they are switching a transistor to ground, this is known as 'an open collector.' In that case, you don't switch the power side, other than whether you want it through the key or hot all the time

86 gets power either full time, through the key, and if the 85 is tied to ground, whatever switching is done in that lead. So it just depends on where the switching is done

You can tell if they are trying to energize by metering them. One way to do that would be to take some of those spare "tap off" flag terminals and hook a lamp to them. A lamp, not an LED. Or alligator clips. you can tie that to the relay 85-86 and see if it's trying to engage. Maybe the trouble is elsewhere.

As cracked back has been known to say, lots of ways to skin that cat. LOL