I have a pale ale that's been in the primary for eight weeks because I Havnt had time to keg or secondary. Is that too long and will the flavor be adversely effected
I say that you will not detect any differences due to the long primary.
I try for 3 weeks and life or laziness often get in the way and I get 6 weeks or so a lot.
If your beer had a lot of hoppiness to it that might have faded a bit.
This. Dry hopping will help in this regard. If you weren't planning to dry hop, then I would say skip the secondary and go straight to the bottle or keg. 8 weeks in the primary is plenty of time for clearing with a chico.