super eta (e28) died randomly.....

[ieatpeople]

This happened while driving home from work yesterday. i was going about 65mph, i rolled into the throttle to merge into traffic, and the car started sputtering. i let up slightly, and it responded like normal. about a half mile later, it started sputtering while cruising. after another 2 miles i had to pull over becasue it wouln't hold any sort of speed. it would only idle, and just barely. it was idling at 450-500rpm, and missing terribly. after a couple minutes, it stalled. i restarted it, and it didn't want to idle. any throttle resulted in it stalling.

after sitting for 2-3 minutes, i again tried starting the car. it fired up perfectly fine, and i drove the rest of the way home.

what the hell happened?
i have some ideas, but i want to know what you guys think.

[jlevie]

My first suspicion would be a fuel system problem. Either a dying pump or rust in the tank collecting on the pump inlet screen and causing starvation.

[ieatpeople]

thats what i was thinking. because of the way it died, and then after a couple of minutes was running fine....

i'm going with rust in the tank. after the pump stopped sucking fuel, the rust sank back down to the bottom, and was no longer clogging the inlet.

i drove the car later last night, ran fine. drove it to work today, running good. we'll see about the drive home.

[jlevie]

It is easy enough to check for rust in the tank. Pull the pump & sensor assembly out and use a stick to stir the bottom of the tank. If there's a layer of sediment you'll feel it.

[Cyrix2k]

could be fuel, or the timing belt could have jumped...

[2.5-12]

same thing happened to me and my iC yesterday.. strange.

[ieatpeople]

car is still running fine, its also being sold very shortly. i guess the next poor sap to buy it will figure it out.....