When I'm in high rpms sometimes, the motor just stops pulling. Literally just stops. Feels like I hit a dead spot or something. I don't know how to describe it better than that. I push the clutch in, switch to the next gear, and the car is fine. Can this be the opti? Or am I looking at a bigger problem?

Should mention that it feels really abrupt.

Feel like I should give more information. Fuel pump was replaced about 10k miles ago. Spark plugs and wires were replaced 20k ago.
Opti was replaced 25k ago, but once had a bath from a broken heater hose. I also have an upper manifold oil leak which slowly runs down the timing cover.
Injectors have all been replaced recently. They were flow matched.
Only things I haven't touched ignition wise are the coil and icm.
Sometimes the car is hard to start, and sometimes the car will start right away but the rpms bounce for about 20 seconds.

 

I have a 94 z and when the opti went bad the car would just stop everything. Like you turned off the key while going down the road. I had to pull over and keep trying until it cranked. Didn't matter the RPM's. I changed out everything, fuel pump, plugs, wires, coil and still the issue of stalling. When I finally pulled the opti I was amazed that it ran at all. Might want to check elsewhere first before tearing into the opti. Removing it is a real pain in the ****.

 

I would change that manifold gasket first and see if that fixes your problem. You need to regardless. What exactly do you mean by rpms bounce for 20 secs? That would be more on the lines of tps.

 

The manifold gasket could cause a problem like that?

And when it bounces it's like it's struggling to stay running. Sounds like I have a giant cam in it.

 

A: no (but it sounds like it needs replacing ahyway)

B: no brainer here: it's either ignition or fuel. You can say no sh## sherlock to me but you need to start the process of elimination. You must rule out what it isn't to get to what it is.

That doesn't mean simply toss parts at it.

We cannot tell you from here.

 

and scan to see if any codes snuck by when you werent lookin. pull some plugs to see if they are fouling, check coil wire, both ends, test temp sensors, look at the maf, map and tps as well. did you replace the opti wire harness when opti was done

 

Well good morning sunshine.

I know it would be literally impossible for you to tell me exactly what to fix, I just want to make sure that Im looking at a fuel/spark problem before I waste my time. Ive never had the motor stop so abruptly.

I think im going to take my icm to the parts store to have it tested.

Ill get started on all that craby. The opti harness was replaced with the opti, but we had a hard time getting it in the opti. Ill pull some plugs and see what they look like.

 

I wouldn't even pull one item from the car until I had even a cheapie code reader hooked up. Your car is a 97 so it's OBD2 and even the auto parts stores can read codes. Maybe it threw an O2 code or something. It's quick and costs nothing to get it read.

Mr Spock, what say you about process of elimination?

 

to the spock video. lol.


Just got the codes read, all that showed up were my usuals. Egr, Air, and the rear o2 sensors. I did take a picture of the freeze data though. Are these values normal?







And I ordered an obd2 cable to read codes on my laptop on ebay. Unfortunately I wasn't paying attention and it's shipping from China. Been two weeks.


Is there an easy way to rule out the maf?
The connector on my maf was fubared so me and my dad replaced it. He got some wires mixed up and we eventually found it, but I'm wondering if it ruined the maf.

 

Why are you getting those codes? Has the exhaust been modified?

For my money, I always address any codes present and then see where I am before replacing parts not not related to the codes.