I have a 98 420a eclipse, bone stock. I was running perfectly until one day towards the end of August. I was on my way to a store about 45 minutes away from home. I was about a half hour into the ride, and all of a sudden the engine stuttered. The first time it happened I thought it was the timing belt breaking, because it almost died out completely(and I had about 130,000mi on the timing belt). I immediately changed the plugs and wires, thinking that would fix it, especially since they hadn't been changed in a couple years. No luck, problem still comes back only after 30 mins on the highway at normal cruising speed.

So here I am, three or so months later, with the same problem. I'll give a rundown of what I have done to the car since the problem started

-plugs and wires
-changed timing belt, all idler pulleys, tensioner water pump etc.
-changed fuel pump(assuming there was low fuel pressure, didn't fix the problem)

At the moment, I have a new fuel filter to swap out, but since I'm in new england, the bolts are heavily rusted on. I am soaking them in PB blaster and waiting. To see what the fuel pressure does when the problem happens, I hooked up my fuel pressure tester, ran it under the hood so that it is propped up just in front of my windshield wiper, so I can drive it and watch the fuel pressure. It reads 50psi steadily, and when the hesitation occurs, the psi drops only one or two psi, which I assume would not cause this shuttering.

This leaves me looking at the coil, which I ohmed out and was just barely under the specs(.40 ohms - the spec is .50-.60 I believe). Also, I guess I am considering the crank and cam sensor. People on here have mentioned the coolant temp sensor causing some problems.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I have been on the forums here for days, and people have similar problems, but I couldn't find anyone with the same exact problem, involving no mods or racing. This car is my daily driver, I don't race it or push it hard. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

You are on the right path and targeting the right things. Your coil is rather old, it's not a bad idea to just get a new one if you don't have a buddy there you can switch coils with for testing.

Water temp is one sensor that can cause this, the TPS is another. Sensor issues are so much easier to diagnose when you can log them.

2gnt: '99 RS-T, killed by a toyota, pending rebuild...
Daily: Volt
Daily #2: '99 EVG ebike- STOLEN by PEDRO

Yeah, I have almost 188,000 on the odometer. So everything is at that point where it could give out at any time. I have had this car since it had 50k on it, and I have taken excellent care of it. I need it to last me another year and a half till I'm done with school, I don't think its unreasonable.

Tomorrow I am gonna check all the sensors, and see if anything is way out of spec. I'd like to have some direction rather than throw parts at it. I'll check the sensors you mentioned. Thanks

I also wanted to add, that when I ohmed out the coil, I got around .40 ohms for the primary coil resistance, and the secondary was just at the low end of the spec, 11.4 or 11.5. Both the pins in the primary resistance were about the same, no major difference between the two. Same goes for the two secondary resistances.

Sorry for being so lengthy on here, I just want to give as much information as possible. I need to get this figured out.

I looked into my valve cover gasket being the culprit, and it isn't leaking down into the spark plug wells, but there is some leakage in the area of the cam sensor, ill check that tomorrow. It might be time to change that gasket anyways, I did do it a few years ago.

Ok, I'll add anything else I think of. Thanks again anyone reading this.

It does sound electrical to me. I'm in Ct, you are welcome to pick up a good used coil from me to check it out. Did you check the wire loom by the egr? It can sometimes melt into the loom and cause funny things. Check to be sure that all sensor plugs are all the way on. When it happens, do the dash lights flash off and on? Or does it just lose power with no other signs? Does it stutter and then just go back to normal? You're not getting to hot, correct?

Captain Caveman

96 RS Turbo 11.414 @ 119.62 MSNS, Crower 2 NA cams, BW366, 10.5 comp, UDP, 60mm TB, W/A intercooler, 3.55 tranny 567.9whp 430tq
97 RS NA 13.188 @ 103.87 MSnS powered 12.5 comp, Crower 3's and 219.4whp with 175tq
98 RS DD 12.5 comp on stock ECU, LTH, Crower 2's, Koni, GC, Hypercoil, DG hats
99 OZ 5sp Stocker 15.856 @ 85.97
99 GS stocker auto 17.7@77mph!

wiki home page:http://www.2gnt.com/index.php?d=bullettdsm

Ok I had a little bit of a breakthrough. I was checking the wires to the coil and the wires that run up along underneath where the air intake runs, and one of my wiring harnesses was worn down, through the split loom, through some of the jacket on one of the wires in the harness. There were some dark spots on the worn area, which leaves me thinking it was arcing somewhere. I've got the harness all covered up again, with a new piece of split loom, but now I just need to secure everything so that doesn't happen again.

I'm off to the thanksgiving meal, later on today or tomorrow I'll have to test drive it, and (fingers crossed) see if the problem still occurs. Either way, it was good to find this problem, just hoping it fixes my more prominent problem.

Where abouts in CT are you? I'm in CT too, Naugatuck. Know of any good places to get dsm parts? Do you know of any specialists in the area? It's good to know about just in case. Anyways take care, happy thanksgiving everyone.

That is absolutely what I did. I looked over the whole section of wires and only the one was affected. I wrapped it thoroughly, then I put a new piece of wire loom on. Hoping it works.

Next I've gotta make sure they are secured away from that tube. Thanks for the advice.

Ok here is the latest. I moved those wires up off the egr, and went for a test drive last night. It was fine then the problem started up worse than ever. The good thing though, is that it threw a code this time. P1391 which I have found to be a misfire due to loss of signal for the cam or crank sensor. Bells go off for me because the wires for the cam sensor are in that same harness that I moved, so I am going to go deeper into the harness to inspect the wires. Also, my lights dimmed this time, and instead of a half second hesitation, it died completely. I think the short in one of those sensors wasn't bad enough at first to throw the code, but when I moved the harness it made it worse.

Also, as a sidenote, I had a cel on and off all summer, throwing a p0140 code, o2 sensor bank 1 sensor 2, loss of signal. That problem eventually went away, and I don't think it has to do with this current problem, but I figured I would mention it.

So I'll take another stab at this, but I'm starting to lose patience. Thanks for all the help everyone, I think I'm getting closer to a fix.

Alternator wires run through that harness as well.

You need to inspect every inch of every wire in that bundle. Also check the connectors.

Good luck!

Captain Caveman

96 RS Turbo 11.414 @ 119.62 MSNS, Crower 2 NA cams, BW366, 10.5 comp, UDP, 60mm TB, W/A intercooler, 3.55 tranny 567.9whp 430tq
97 RS NA 13.188 @ 103.87 MSnS powered 12.5 comp, Crower 3's and 219.4whp with 175tq
98 RS DD 12.5 comp on stock ECU, LTH, Crower 2's, Koni, GC, Hypercoil, DG hats
99 OZ 5sp Stocker 15.856 @ 85.97
99 GS stocker auto 17.7@77mph!

wiki home page:http://www.2gnt.com/index.php?d=bullettdsm

After a day or so of inspecting wires, I found two more problems. The group of wires going to the IAC had a hole worn through and one wire was bare, and touching the egr tube. Also, same story for a group of wires that go to the plug right under the throttle body, the fuel injector harness, also had hole worn in harness, one wire was worn down bare and was touching the egr tube.

So I was feeling pretty good when I went out on my test drive. I drove the normal route I take, a half hour each way. It felt good, wasn't acting up at all. But unfortunately, it did buck a few small times. Compared to what it was doing previously, it is 90% better. I'm gonna continue to inspect all the wires, harnesses and etc, and hopefully i'll find some other problems.

The problem is largely unpredictable, and I can't seem to make the car do it, regardless of how much I'm on the gas pedal, or speed etc. However near the end of my approximately one hour test drive, I found that if I coasted down to about 60 in 5th gear, and just tapped the gas a couple times, that is when it did feel like there was the split second loss in power I am so used to feeling now. It did it the once, then I tried it again and it didn't really do it. There seems to be some sort of correlation between the problem and that split second where the throttle snaps shut.

If a thorough inspection of the wires and repairs to any damaged ones doesn't fix this, I guess I'll look into sensors causing the problem. I guess I just wish fixing these worn wires would have fixed the problem entirely.

Well I supposedly fixed all my damaged wires. I've scoured over the wires on the top end, I guess I need to get it up on ramps and wiggle some wires up underneath the back while its running. I changed the plugs and wires just on the off chance it might fix it. I had put in ngk copper plugs and the autozone brand wires when the problem initially started, so I got myself a new set of wires under warranty for the heck of it, and some ngk iridiums, which is what I was running before. No luck, still bucks. I'm gonna start replacing sensors starting with the cam and crank sensors. I'm going back to school for the week so I'll have to brainstorm until next weekend. It is definitely heat related, and I'm fairly sure sensors can be affected by heat. The car has 180k on it, and all the sensors are stock, so something must be wearing out.

Any suggestions??

Erik P.
Official 2GNT thread Hijacker
Some say that he's driven over more Covenant than he's shot, and that his grenades aren't where you'd expect them to be...
All we know is, He's not The Stig... But he is The Stig's Spartan cousin!

Ok so I finally got this straightened out. After careful inspection of any and all wiring harness I could see, and fixing any faulty wiring, my problem ended up being the crank position sensor. The car tripped a 1391 code once( and only once) when it hesitated the most severely, which led me to look at the cam or crank sensors. When the wiring checked out fine to both of them, I started with replacing the cam sensor(it was cheaper, that was my only logic). That didn't fix it but it did fix the oil leak that the old sensor had due to the deterioration of the rubber o ring. I popped in the crank sensor this morning, and I drove it for an hour or so with no hesitation at all.

So I am skeptical, but hopefully the problem is fixed and I can brace myself for the next problem.

thanks everyone who helped me out on here. I am new to the forum, but ive had my 2gnt for 6 years now. I wish I had joined earlier, it was such a big help.

So I don't want to revive this 3 year old thread, but I wanna update it with my info.

I too have had this same exact hesitation described for about a year now. Progressively getting worse, it got to the point where it was preventing me from getting onto the highway. It would seriously hesitate at 2.8K and above when warmed up after about 30 mins of highway driving.

When scanned, I had several codes (mostly ignorable EGR related), but one stood out:
p0340 - No cam signal at PCM - camshaft position sensor connector and sensor.

I was confident that it was the Cam sensor, even after reading this -> http://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=122458&mode=full

After replacing the wires, coil, plugs and cam sensor, the problem ended up being the Crank sensor - same as the OP's issue. One code I had/have is p1390 (which is crank signal related) but since the ECU has always had that code (tim's ECU), I ignored it. Well, after replacing the crank sensor, the car has been starting, runs flawlessly and much better - both cold and hot. I noticed the following:

- 5+ MPG highway increase
- Hesitation completely gone in all RPM ranges
- Starts quickly everytime - cold/hot
- Increased throttle response and yes, power
- you get the idea...

Just wanted to share my results for future searchers. Check that Crank sensor!

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Outside of Corona: "That sucks, peace out..." (jamie walks away)... "Sweeet, what we doin?" -Zac
Tim's garage (prior to motor install): "Im gonna smoke real quick, that way if you fuck up I am already nicotined up" -Tim