Car shuts off randomly on highway

[Jookmasta]

so ive been having this problem for about 3 days now. I will be accelerating on the highway to get up to high way speeds and the car will just shut off very abruptly. No weird idle or anything. It feels the same way as if the governor trips in. So when it does cut off, the speedometer shuts off, revs drop, oil pressure drops, etc. and radio stays on. I pull over to the side and after waiting about one minute, the car starts up and runs again. It happened about 3 or 4 times on the way home.

So my first thought was the battery since it has been corroding the terminals for the past month. So i changed that and car ran good on tuesday. Today is wednesday and the same stuff happened again. Died on the highway twice. So im now looking for a solution to this frustratin problem. Some people say fuel filter, or fuel pump is goin bad, or distributor needs new cap and rotor, or maf wire might be loose. What do yall think? Need some help asap as this is my daily driver.

[NX95240]

what model is your car? my 95' did the same thing one time . it was the knock sen. in the top of the bell housing. the wire got broke .when the car got hot if would just die wait a min. and start right up. just though i tell you .

[Jookmasta]

its a 93

[Florida240sx]

hmm Do you have any enemies? Me and my other friend were talking about ways to get back at people who have messed with our cars. Anywayz a trick he knows is to put a marble in the gas tank. Makes you car shutoff abotu every 15minutes. But how would they of gotten to your gas tank if this was the case?

[Jookmasta]

wow, now that would be something if that occurred. dont have any enemies that i know of and remember that u need to open the gas tank lid from inside the car.plus if it makes ur car shut off every 15 min, then that wouldnt be it cuz i drive for days without it happenin. any other suggestions?

[yelnatsch517]

hmm Do you have any enemies? Me and my other friend were talking about ways to get back at people who have messed with our cars. Anywayz a trick he knows is to put a marble in the gas tank. Makes you car shutoff abotu every 15minutes. But how would they of gotten to your gas tank if this was the case?

Cool!! What causes the car to shut off every 15min? The marble clogs the pipe?

PS. Yu Yu Hakusho rules!!!

[Jookmasta]

happened again today on the way to school so now its really starting to get frustrating. doesnt do it when i keep the revs under 2000 but the car still isnt driveable on the highway. any suggestions?

[S13CoupeLuvr]

I've owned two 240s that have done this. The first one turned out to be a cooling system failure that was tripping some sensor (God knows if that's correct). Certain parts of my block weren't receiving coolant due to a faulty head gasket. The second car was an electrical short. This one was a weird one, though... shortly after I bought this car (which had been wired for subwoofers from a previous owner, and he then removed them leaving only the wire) it would shut off on the highway. Turns out, the fuse on the sub wire came loose on one end, leaving the live exposed wire simply hanging there. Whenever I went over a bump on the highway, the car would shut off b/c the wire made direct contact with the chassis. Burned a 3" hole right through my wheel well! Glad I caught that one fairly quickly...

[S13CoupeLuvr]

This sounds like cooling to me.

[Jookmasta]

so did you just replace the head gasket and the problem was fixed? how did ya solve the problem or did it not get fixed?

[hannibal]

Let me put my newbie opinion out there.It sounds like an electrical problem. The weird thing to me is that the speedometer instantly drops to 0 when as soon as the car cuts off. It should still read normally in the 'On' position shouldn't it?

[Jookmasta]

sad to say the speedometer shuts off completely when the engine cuts out. i dont think the digital ones read out anything when something like that occurs. i pray that it is that coolant temp sensor and not sumthin more serious. any other suggestions?

[Luke]

Does the engine stall out? You can tell by looking at the lights in the gauge cluster. Sounds like fuel to me. My brothers Acura 3.5RL was doing that and it was his fuel pump relay that crapped out.

Check out your fuel pump and fuses/relays. Those are a lot easier to repair than a headgasket or anything major like that.

[Jookmasta]

no check engine light. the car did crap out on me today tho, no engine light and this happened with the car in neutral. the car did fine on the highway today tho, dont know why it crapped out on me while turinin into my complex. any other suggestions?

[Florida240sx]

Cool!! What causes the car to shut off every 15min? The marble clogs the pipe?

We didn't talk about iy much. But from what I remember he said it gets in the pipe and just clogs it so no fuel can get passed. Guess everytime the car starts tough fuel gets pass it and there is enough in the line for like 15minutes of driving.

[Jookmasta]

see if it was the fuel relay or fuse, it probably wouldnt have started back up? engine cuts out. no misfiring, or sputtering. Feels like when the governor kicks in, but instead engine dies. any other suggestions?

[Jookmasta]

bump for some more help

[Jookmasta]

well today was the day of reckoning. took the car out on the normal road and was mergin onto the highway and poof it turned off. This time it was special cuz the car now wont start period. The engine turns over and it is gettin spark but no go. Car was towed home so now its crunch time. please post any suggestions thanks.

[Toddles82]

I had a similar problem to yours, but I never found a solution. I searched high and low and this thread has every answer that I came up with. I took it to the dealership and one dealership said I had a bad ECU (WTF???) and the other said it was a coolant sensor and/or the AIV reed was bent (tho they never took anythign apart).

It has sense stopped surging, but it only did it when it was warm. I also had the electrical problems mentioned above.

Here's what I've come to.

I think that the wire solution is a very viable cause to this b\c the previous owner had a sunroof installed and did a ****ty job of it, so I checked that out. I would check yours for any previous installations of anything (cell phone, alarms, stereo, java machines (could have been on pimp my ride, you never know)

Last, I believe this to be very very realistic. My car has 110,000 miles on, and probably the same factory knock sensor. Sometimes the car had no power (press the throttle go no where...BAM SURGE FORWARD....back to normal) I've heard the knock sensor can make this happen.

1.) check for previous installs.2.) check grounds on your motor.3.) Consider replacing the coolant sensor temp and/or the knock sensor.

[Jookmasta]

well toodles, to answer ur questions. first off i am the original owner. we got the car back in 93 brand spanking new. second, we replaced the knock sensor and coolant temp sensor about 2 years ago. we had that surging problem that you were talking about and it is the knock sensor that causes that. the grounds on the motor seem fine. thanks for the suggestions tho. We looked into those three suggestions the first time it happened.

Another update tho. The car still wont start. It will turnover, and i get spark but wont start. The dash lights will now not come on when cranking the car. None of them. Car still cranks tho. Also the windows will now not go up. We definitely know its electrical but where to start. Also, i went hunting under the dash under the driver's side and i found a gray and yellow wire that was cut. It wasnt cut cleanly, looked like it broke from stress. Dont know what it does and i cant find the other end to it at the moment. Im currently downloading the fsm to see if it can shed sum light. Any suggestions? Please help

[Jookmasta]

o ya, to be more specific about the car. car currently has 135K and the knock sensor was changed around 120K or so.

[TravisD]

You say you noticed your battery coording over the last month? My first thought was Toddles #2) The ground connection. A bad ground can doo all kinds of crazy shizt to your car. Use a mulimeter (or ohm-meter) to check the resistance (ohms, greek letter omega) between the (someone please correct me if I'm wrong or, better yet, Jook, research and verify me) negative battery terminal and the chassis (bare shiny metal...also clean the terminals on the battery beforehand) It should be about zero.

[Jookmasta]

well the positive terminal was corroding over the last month, not the negative. I did clean the terminal and i did get a new battery this past monday. no corrosion at all on the battery. The positive terminal that hooks to the battery is half bronzed (from the corrosion) and half normal lookin (the top portion of the terminal which didnt see any corrosion). do you think i should replace this?

[Luke]

Make sure you're getting fuel! You can disconnect the feed line coming from the fuel filter and turn the key to ON. If fuel comes out, your fuel pump is pumping fuel.

This guy wired his electric fan to the fuel pump fuse and had the same problems as you:http://www.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=91261

[Jookmasta]

i will definitely check the fuel then. could a bad fuel pump cause none of the dash lights to come on and for the windows to not roll up tho?

[Jookmasta]

so now im thinking its the ignition switch; seatbelt wont move and windows wont roll up. got two lights on the dash tho for about a quarter a second. It was the check engine light and seatbelt light. but we are thinkin of the ignition switch. any suggestions?

[TravisD]

Quote »We definitely know its electrical but where to start. [/quote]GROUND CONNECTION

Also, I found this site, http://www.autosite.com/garage...b.asp and according to that article, you should do a voltage drop test instead cuz checking resistance doesn't cut it (they tell you how and the principle behind it.) an interesting quote: "...according to a major ignition and electronic components manufacturer, 55% of the sensors returned as defective are actually okay, and 70% of driveability problems are due to wiring or connector faults, many of which involve the ground side. " I don't know where they got that 70% from, but it IS a lcommon problem on all older vehicles. And, the salty Miami air is not your friend. I also have some electrical issues...maybe I need to recheck mine I hope so.

[Jookmasta]

i guess ill check the ground then with a voltage drop test. the ground wire didnt have any corrosion tho. and since i need to change the positive terminal, any ideas if its hard and what tools are involved?

[TravisD]

Just clean it. You need to get acquainted with Google.

[Jookmasta]

well bad news here. checked for fuel when the key is in the "on" position and no fuel. we also torn down the dash underneath the steering and checked every wire with a test light and things were receiving power. We then proceeded to check the fuses and relays by the battery. im not getting any power to the fuel pump fuse nor egi pump relay. there was also another fuse right above the fuel pump one but it escapes me right now what it is. also as for the terminals, everything is straight there cuz they are giving power so no need to change em.

i didnt bother buying carb cleaner to spray in the intake mani due to the lack of fuel. so in summary, fuel pump isnt receiving power and neither is the fuel pump fuse nor egi pump relay. dash lights still wont come on and seatbelts and windows arent moving. i havent taken a look at the ecu yet but thats tomorrow.

what do you guys think?