Ok, now I'm really confused (back to the stutter)

[SHODOGG]

Ok, for those of you who didn't see my last post on the issue, please see this link: http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=92101

Anyways, so I replaced the CPS and Cam oil seals over the past couple of weeks (I only had about 4 days to work on it in the past few weeks). During the procedure, I noted that everything looked just fine visually except for the cam oil seal under where the CAM sensor goes was leaking pretty good. With that fixed and new Cam AND Crank sensors, I figured I'd be good to go. The Timing Belt was on perfectly when I took it off and we made sure to put it back on perfectly as well. The car started right up after it was all put back together so I was excited.

Take the car out, rev it out and BOOM! 5k rpms, it does the SAME thing it was doing before I did all that work (dies out for a second). I can't seem to find any pattern other than it only happens when driving aggressively and usually at a higher RPM. It has happened on hard 1-2 shifts and also when the car is already in a given gear (1st or 2nd, lets say) and you just jump on the gas. None of these situations are full-proof in terms of making the stutter happen but those are the most common occurrences. Assuming we've ruled out anything on the front of the engine (timing belt and CPS), what the F else can be wrong???

The fuel pump is a 190lph unit that was put on the car around the 70k mile mark and the car now has 143k miles, but I suppose that could be it?? That or maybe a bad ECU are my only ideas right now. I say bad ECU because at one point (prior to changing to the new CPS) the car outright DIED and wouldnt start again, and at that time the car would not let me check the codes. In other words, the car would not enter the "code-checking" mode after jumpering the connector under the hood and turning the key to "on." So that's where I'm at right now...

 

[Mr Anonymous]

Luke, it sounds to me like you have a bad or loose wire somewhere that's acting up when the engine is moving around. I'd start with the PCM ground lead & connection, the battery cables, the cable going to the coil, and the cable going to the CCRM.

With the car running at a high idle (put a feeler gauge in the throttle stop to keep the idle around 1200-1500 RPM), start grabbing bundles of wires and wiggling them almost violently. When you start getting stumbling/stalling as you wiggle the wires, you've found the area then you just need to narrow it down to the point that you can repeat it and that will identify the offending wire/connector.

The symptoms you describe suggest to me that your wiring issue is causing the PCM to briefly losing power/ground and results in rough running as the PCM cuts in and out. Your stall-no-restart and no-self-test issue reinforces this; in that instance the problem just didn't correct itself until something moved and restored PCM power.

 

[SHODOGG]

Question: Can you think of anything specifically near the clutch/trans area that would cause this to happen? This only happened AFTER that last clutch job I had done in August...

 

[Off Road SHO]

Yes, A wire bundle caught between the bell housing and block.

Tom

 

[SHODOGG]

I figured it out!!!! Here is a picture of the culprit (sort of)

See that black connector under the blue wire?? When I wiggle that aggressively, the car sputters and shuts down. I cut the sheathing around it and couldnt see any damage to the wires going to either side of the connector. This is located underneath the Throttle Body to the right of the Thermostat housing, as you can see. The connector itself is tight as well. If I run my hand along the wires towards the block, they meet up with what appears to be a bigger wiring harness that has other leads coming off it in different directions. When I do this and if I start pushing the wire downwards, the engine shuts off. If I disconnect that black connector, the car shuts off. WTF is it and what does it do???