Kevin Baker

Hey James. I know that you don't want to just throw parts at the car, but for what it's worth, when mine was stalling, and by stalling I mean shutting down completely and not starting again for hours, I finally chased it down to the DME engine temp sender. Its the one that tells the DME what the coolant temp is, it's different than the one that is in the radiator. It is located on the engine block, just below the injector boot ( J hose).

PeteL

Hell, may as well try it. Also, have you swapped a DME in there? Maybe there is a loose solder. When you hit a bump...car no runny. Hopefully someone may have a spare for this experiment.

goingboeing737

89magic98,
I have not tried to adjust the bracket for the sensors. I can't believe that it would be out of wack from just removing the sensors???? I didn't touch it I swear.....

I did take it out yesterday and it sat for about an hour and half @ Starbucks. Started perfect when I was ready to go.

Didn't have time to mess with it today. Got a nasty gram from homeowners association and had to weed and mulch the flowerbeds

Geo, If you're around tomorrow, give me a call and stop by. You can help me push this thing to a cliff......

Tom Carson

it was out of whack before you removed them

Kevin Baker

If the sensor block is out of adjustment, would that cause an intermittent problem or a consistant problem? I would have thought an adjustment issue would not "change" day to day.

goingboeing737

The car has run fine for a year, never a starting/running issue till the intermittent stalling started a couple of weeks ago.

Guess I'll slap in another DME relay today and see what that does.


Sure is a nice day here today,,,wish I could drive my car

89magic98

Since one of your sensors was badly scored, I assume that it was sitting way too close to the flywheel. There is a minimum spacing spec for this.

If you don't have the spacing correct, the quality of the signal going back to the DME will be different, and may not be interpreted properly by the DME. In other words, there is an exact spacing requirement. You should do this adjustment before moving on to anything else.

You said you were experimenting by putting shim washers in place, which is not as good as adjusting the whold assembly that holds the two sensors in place.

If the assembly is loose, maybe hitting a pothole causes it to move up and down, causing a stall / no start.

goingboeing737

The mounting block seems solid as a rock. I took out the shim/washer and went back to the exact way it was configured before.

Just swapped out DME relay. Still no start.

Guess I will try and adjust the mounting block today.

This is a real low point. I have no confidence in this POS ever getting me to and from where I want to go without breaking down.

PeteL

I still think there is an issue with the DME itself. A loose connection/bad solder. If it failing when it hits a bump, the flaky connection goes bad, and the vehicle becomes a monument to German Engineering.

quinnfiske

My car is still acting the same way. I have moved on to the DME itself. I sent it to a guy in California who is set up to do functional testing on these gizmo's. He told me he found a problem is the section devoted to ignition timing. He is sending it back and I will report the results here.

To see if your problem is the same, take a timing light and shine it into the inspection hole next to the distributor cap. With the engine at idle the cam pulley will look stationary. If it looks like it is moving back and forth, th etiming is changing. My timing was wandering all over the place until it retarded and the engine died.