Well, my wife has been driving our 'new to us' '99 SLE (it has 112,000 miles) just about every day for roughly 2 weeks. She'* driven roughly 125 miles in that time. Yesterday she said she was stopped at a light and when she began to accelerate the car 'jerked a little'. That'* all she was able to tell me. I looked over the car when I got home from work, and I didn't find anything wrong. There were no error codes. I took it for a 10-minute test drive, and everything behaved normally. It was up to operating temp during the test drive.

Today we were stopped at the SAME intersection where my wife said the problem occurred yesterday (what are the chances of that!!!), and as I accelerated gently in 1st gear the engine stumbled and stalled. The engine light never came on. I put the transmission in neutral and cranked the engine. It cranked but wouldn't stay running. I probably cranked it 3 different times in neutral. The ABS light was the only light that was on. I put it in Park and cranked it again, and it started and I drove us home (roughly 1 mile).

I checked for error codes again after we got home today, and there were none. I looked under the hood and didn't see anything wrong. I checked the coil packs with a multimeter and they all measured roughly the same (5.6KOhms IIRC) when they were up to operating temp on the car. I even lifted the driver side carpet to see if maybe the ground bus was wet/corroded, but the floor was dry and everything under the carpet looked brand new, and the wires were perfectly taped so I didn't remove the black electrical tape to look at the ground bus. I took the car for another 20-minute test drive today, and everything was fine; there were no odd behaviors at all.

I'm wondering if maybe this is an early crank sensor problem? Or maybe the ignition control module? Or maybe I messed something up when I replaced the intake manifold with the new redesigned one that has the metal sleeve around the EGR passage? The dealer replaced the lower intake gaskets with the aluminum ones while the previous owner owned it, but the upper intake manifold had a '99 date code on it, so I replaced the manifold and the alternator (before my wife started driving this car) to make sure it wouldn't have problems down the road. Everything went smoothly, and there have been no signs of leaks or anything.

Today just for kicks I checked to make sure that the nylon EGR tube inside the intake manifold hadn't fallen inside or something; it was still in the correct position.

Any ideas?
Thanks.

when i had crank sensor problems it wouldnt quit while driving, it wouldnt refire when i went to the store or something. ICM sounds possible sometimes you can heat it up with a heat gun and get it to cut out.
does it seem heat related like when you are stopped at a light for a while or do slow speed driving for a while?

There've only been 2 problems so far. Both occurred when waiting at a light for a while and then accelerarting...and both times it happened at the SAME intersection! I can't imagine that being anything other than a very strange coincidence.
How could I heat the ICM with a heat gun without also heating the coil packs?

Thanks.

...and when you had crank sensor problems, were any error codes stored? There aren't any error codes on mine, and as I said, the engine light didn't come on either.

When it stalls out, does it just die like a switch was flipped, or kind of stumble and then die. I would be looking at fuel. How full is the gas tank? I've seen several with 1/4 tank or less stall out on hills, sharp turns, and starts. The fuel sloshes around and starves the pump.

The fuel tank is roughly 3/4 full. It only stalled once so far, yesterday, on a flat surface, after we were waiting at a light for several seconds. It jerked once for a fraction of a second and then it stalled. It came without warning other than the jerking and it happened so fast that I didn't even have a chance to try adjusting the throttle. The car was barely moving, so I don't suspect a problem with the fuel tank.

It'* tough to say with any surety, if it was me...I'd swap the crank sensor. It'* a common issue for stalling and then restarting w/o issue.

your just speeding up the process you dont want to melt them or anything, if the coils are bad the car will probably start running bad if the icm is bad it will just cut off.

and when i had the icm or cps fail i didnt get codes either time

Rather than waiting for it to stall again with my wife and kids in the car, I bought a harmonic balancer and crank sensor from AutoZone today and had a local shop install them. I'm glad they pulled the balancer instead of me; they said it didn't want to come off. Took them about an hour and 15 minutes, and they charged me $70 for labor to replace the balancer and the sensor.

When I got the car home, there was a puddle of oil on the driveway; the front seal was now leaking. I took the car right back to the shop and they showed me that the seal looked fine but started leaking for some reason; the leaking seal material was orange. I bought a new Fram seal kit from Kragen (the seal material was brown) and they installed the new seal and put everything back together without charging me anything else. That made my day.

Now we'll wait and see if the engine stalls again...hopefully, it won't, but time will tell.

i hope you got it, it was probably leaking because they were beating the heck out of the balancer, instead of getting the right puller.