I broke down this weekend, pulled the engine down and did a full front end on it. Belt, Front Seal and CPS. No problems to date. I found a couple of interesting things.
The CPS I took out looked factory original. The gap for the CPS was only set at .020. With the magnet to the inside of the vein ring, the gap set too close would put the pick up farther away from the veins. With normal heat expansion of the engine, the gap could open up past the operating range of the pick up. Add to that a little wear on the rods, mains and thrust washers and things could get interesting. My problem seemed to be when the engine was shut down for 30 to 40 minutes and restarted. Pull up to the first red light or stop sign and it would just die and would not restart for 20 to 30 minutes. When you shut the engine down, the temperatures of the oil and coolant are going to spike as there is no air moving over the engine and no fluids flowing. Combine that with a weak pick up magnet and you could get all kinds of crazy things going on. Just a theory at this point.
Another thing to consider is several attempts at restarting the engine with no spark can pump excessive fuel in the cylinders. After several restarts attempted in a short period of time, the sensors are screwed. My best result was to wait 10 or 15 minutes, push the gas pedal to the floor and give it a shot. I read some where that this will shut off the flow of fuel to the injectors and allow the excess fuel to be burned out of the cylinders. Can’t say if that is true or not but it seemed to work for me.
The second thing I found was a corroded and sloppy connection for the ground wire at the plug in the main harness for the CPS. I am going to try an experiment and unplug the ground while the engine is running and see if it throws a 211 code. More later.
On another note, I have read about trouble finding parts for the SHO. I have been getting my parts from Advanced Auto Parts locally. If they don’t have it they can usually get it over night.
Replaced to date:
Crank Sensor
Cam Sensor
Idle Air
MAF
DIS
Coil Pack
Plugs (Autolite)
Plug Wires
Belts
Alternator
Not all of these parts were bad, just a peace of mind thing.