This car starts and runs flawlessly in the 3 seasons I've driven it. 3 times in the last 2 years after a drive of 100 miles or so car won't restart until completely cooled down. This take hours. Haven't been able to recreate problem in home garage or professional shop. When it happens I have fuel pressure but no spark on either side at distributor. I'm thinking crank or flywheel sensor but this is only an educated guess. Can anyone help?

Submitted by sodium@captain… on Fri, 06/20/2014 - 18:02

I've had this happen.

On my car this problem has taken 3 different forms. The crank position sensor Steven illustrated was one of them.

A worn main power relay was another. Running power through the relay heated it and resulted in higher resistance and engine shutdown when voltage dropped to the ECU below it's operating threshhold. Yes, that took a while to figure out. But the fix is easy and the diagnosis too. Move the relays around. If the problem follows the relay, replace it.

Also, my idle air control valve worked intermittently and when it didn't the engine would die at idle and not start until it felt like it.

Submitted by stevejag@sbcgl… on Mon, 06/02/2014 - 15:48

Your problem is most likely either the TDC sensor at the bottom front of the crank shaft or the Engine Speed Sensor at the rear, triggered by the flexplate [flywheel]. Once it gets hot enough, the signal goes away or is so low it can no longer trigger the ECU properly. The only way to prove which, is to duplicate and either measure the sensor signals at the time, or better yet, monitor with an oscilloscope to see which goes haywire.

Good luck!