If this goes in 92-99 I apologize in advance.

So I am driving home from class today and the engine kinda hiccups. No big deal, its happened before. Did it a couple more times, and finally one more bad enough that it threw a code. Pulled over right away to make sure my new intake was intact (was hoping I wouldn't open the hood and find my RX-4750 collapsed in sucked into the intake pipe ). No problems there, got back in my car and the engine died. Crap. Went to start it, no go. Tried again and it started up. Drove 5 miles home and just had some minor power issues and hiccups and what not.

Got home, got some chow, got in my car to get the codes pulled. No CEL, no engine problems what so ever. Get to the shop, $35 later I have codes 321, 341, 361.

I don't see any codes like this in my Chilton'* (shoulda gotten a FSM). Here is the explaination from the shop. One of them is "Intermittent No Cam Signal." One is "EST" (??) and the other is unrelated.

So it could be my CMP...thats like a $40 part or so.

But then while there, the guy told me about a Bonneville that they had in there within the last month. Here is how I interpretted what he said. There is a magnet inside the timing chain housing which is either on the cam, or rotates with the cam...what ever. The CMP sensor reads this magnet. The magnet on the Bville they recently saw was loose. So sometimes it would sorta move a bit to the point where the CMP sensor couldn't read it. Either it did, or it could, eventually fall off. When this happens the car will die and it will not restart until it is fixed.

He said one of three things could happen. It could never happen again (but something similar has happened in the past, but not enough to throw a code), it could get worse and worse and happen more frequently, or eventually the magnet will fall of with no warning and leave me stranded.

He also said if it was the magnet it would cost $400, mostly in labor because they would have to take the "front cover" off of the engine.

I guess I am just curious, have you ever heard about this. I have never read about it on here before. I know all about the camshaft position sensor with the wires going bad, but never about the magnet on the cam. What gives?

The cam shaft position sensor magnet is located on the cam shaft sprocket. The engine will operate if the cam shaft sensor fails, but will run in a degraded state due to the PCM not receiving that particular input for ignition timing etc.

I would say that I experienced a loss of power (I'm guessing from poor timing) most of the way home, but with a hiccup every once in awhile.

How do I know which one it is? From the looks of it the sensor is like $40 if I do it myself, but the magnet is going to cost a lot in labor since I don't know how to take the timing chain cover off.

Did you do a search cause ther is lot of info on it , Im like you Ill try anything but this job is a little overwhelming for the newer guys, but there are a few threads that will give you some incite.

Logan..hang in a little .. I don't have any experience on that..

Except I can tell you from personal experience on S2 (I know..your are S1) there is a 1 in 6 chance the motor will start and run. That'* what happened to you on the side of the road. Took more than one try to fire up.

Once mine was running, there were no issues, power loss or anything in default mode. Ran fine. And on the magnet issue..I thought that was only the LN3 guys that had that issue.

My manuals don't have 94. Going for techinfo.

Don't see it in techinfo. Will someone with the manual please post the info.

Which was?

I have _never_ had a backfire and I do not feel any missing. The car was running fairly smooth even after it happened, but it was not running normal. Its very important to note that it seems just fine now.