willwren, here are the results

1. Ignition on (no start) for 2 seconds, then off, and repeat for a total of three 2-second 'prime' times.
What is the pressure? 45psi

How fast does it bleed down 10psi from that value? It took 1 hr and 5 min to drop to 17 psi. Could not wait for the 7psi.

2. Idle. What'* the pressure? 39 to 40 psi

3. Idle with the vacuum line pulled off the FPR. What'* the pressure? 45 psi

After that, leave the fuel pressure gauge connected and watch it until the car dies. What does the pressure drop to just before, 35 psi

during,.....spiked to 45 to 47 psi aprx just before it died

and after it dies? dead at 45 psi[/b]

idk, id trouble shoot the dtc 18 before anything

SJ, according to him, the code 18 has cleared and not come back.

At this point, I'd rule out fuel pressure (pump) as the culprit. It looks good across the board.

Next time it dies and won't restart, check for spark at the front three cylinders.

willwren
when it dies, the 3 front plugs do not have a spark.

some additional stuff I just tried,

When the engine dies/stops, I added cold water to the crank sensor, the engine starts up right away. This is a new crank sensor just bought to resolve this problem. I will try the old crank sensor again, but is there something else that is linked to the cold water? This is odd, obviously the sensor is heating up too much. Why??

It sounds like you bought a faulty sensor but another possibility is that the sensor isn't properly centered with the harmonic balancer.

I used a vernier to center the sensor within 0.25 mm anyways. This did get rid of my 18 trouble code, but the car still would shut off.

yeah im sorry, i missed that. i read "icm changed and same prob." i missed the cleared part. whoops.


but any way...fuel pressure is good. and you added water to the crank sensor? how exactly did you add water?

and when it dies the engine has no spark at all. is the ses light still remaining clear? this has to be a loose connection. if you got a faulty sensor out of the box, why would it do the exact same thing as the old sensor? i would guess that its a connection problem on one of the pins,maybe.

first i would check the harness on the crank sensor for corrosion if looks good, you could check the pins from the sensor plug to the icm harness. and then from the icm harness to the pcm harness.

crank sensor to ICM
pin A ----------------- pin H (sync sig in)
pin B ----------------- pin G (cs sig in)
pin C ----------------- pin M (sens ground)
pin D ----------------- pin N (sens feed)

ICM to PCM
pin C------- pin D6, grn harness (spark ref)
pin D------- pin C11, 32 pin blk harness

all should be close to zero ohms

here is a schematic for the icm and cps.
***please note this is for the W body project in my sig. Ignore the pcm pins. the icm pins are the same, but follow the pins stated above for the pcm! ***

[/b]

Hi samueljackson, thanks for your help.

As for the water on the sensor, a neighbour told me to cool off the sensor and I tried it with the garden hose. When the car was idling and shut off, I sprayed water to the crank sensor and it would startright up right away. I did not have to wait for the cool down period of 2 min after it wouild shut off after idling for 5 min.

What I think the problem is, the aftermarket (AM) crank sensor is made differently than OEM(the fingers that read the crank on the after market sensor are shorter that the OEM fingers) My thinking is that the water maybe helps induct the electrical signal from crank to the aftermarket crank sensor fingers that are shorter????????????

Anyway....I swapped the AM sensor with the older one. The engine runs REAL ROUGH, RPM are up and down and service engine light comes on. The car stalls because it sounds like a diesel engine. When it shuts stalls, you can restart the engine right away without waiting for somthing to cools off. (which i think is now the crank sensor)

This does not make sense to me but if anyone can help out with some other pointers, pls reply.

I will check the resistance on the connections you mentioned.

willwren, samueljackson, Technical Ted

Thanks for all your feedback. Problem is solved. The new crank sensor was faulty. I returned it, got a new one and it runs great.

I have learned alot on this. Just so I know for the future. The cam sensor only reads RPM?? And the Crank sensor reads the piston timing to properly inject fuel and send the spark????

THANKS ALOT FOR ALL YOU TIME. I HAD FUN