Engine dies intermittantly?

[Chero77]

Yesterday, the engine died while pulling up to a light. Restarted no problem. It did the same this morning. Later it cut out twice while driving home. By cut out I mean the tach dropped to zero for a second (engine definitely quit) and almost immediately jumped back up. Its now parked in the garage and of course is running fine. Shook the wiring harness, trying to get the engine to cut out again, no luck. Checked various things, but hey its running, can't locate a problem. My guess is I have an intermittantly open circuit somewhere. Maybe a broken wire in the primary ignition circuit, a broken sensor in the distributor, or a flaky ECU.

What else could cause this type of intermittant failure? Seems like an electrical problem to me. Can't think of any good way to trouble shoot it.

Thanks,
Dave

[Rogue]

egr valve can do this also

[Stolen76]

Most intermitent failure is in a wire or connection. When a part is broken, it's broken. Permanent failure. When a wire breaks or gets corroded, vibration will keep it going for a while.

[icavdiv4fun]

Had almost the exact same problem. Here is what mine was. (and it was a booger to find.)
Problem 1 - sometime a wire got lose at the dizzy. (just backed out a little.)

Problem 2 - (the hard one to find) Check the distance between the air cleaner and the coil. Mine was shorting out on snorkle of the air cleaner, causing; you guessed it unexplainable missing, pauses and studders. Drove fine most of the time, ran like crap sometimes, stoppiing completely. Just check it is easy to fix. (just loosen and rotate air cleaner and put tape across the back of the coil.

[icavdiv4fun]

Had almost the exact same problem. Here is what mine was. (and it was a booger to find.)
Problem 1 - sometime a wire got lose at the dizzy. (just backed out a little.)

Problem 2 - (the hard one to find) Check the distance between the air cleaner and the coil. Mine was shorting out on snorkle of the air cleaner, causing; you guessed it unexplainable missing, pauses and studders. Drove fine most of the time, ran like crap sometimes, stoppiing completely. Just check it is easy to fix. (just loosen and rotate air cleaner and put tape across the back of the coil.

[Chero77]

Ok, did all of the electrical tests suggested by the TSM for finding an intermittent ignition problem. All components check out. If not electrical, TSM says replace fuel filter. I ponder this option doubtfully, as the current filter has only been on for 8000 miles. I am thinking well who knows whats in the bottom of that tank. So what if your Probe GTs fuel filter went 120,000 miles before you ever replaced it. Hey, its only $5. Try it. So I replace the filter and, ITS FIXED, or so it seems. Sometimes you just get lucky.

[Stolen76]

Glad to see it fixed cheaply ! I had a fuel problem myself a couple of weeks ago. Got gas, truck died 6 blocks later. Water in the fuel. After disassembling the carb on the side of the road, cleaning and installing, I hooked up an electric pump and pulled all of my fuel through a Racor fuel/water seperator. It worked so well, I left it as a permanent filter on my engine. I drain it every week and ALWAYS drain out some water. This is 1,000 miles later and I purposely ran it out of gas twice sice then. These things are awesome.