random low idle, stall, & hard start, wtf??

[quikveedb2]

i took a trip down to w-s today to see some family, once or twice i felt as though the engine missed a beat for a few seconds then came back to life, and though nothing of it. about 2 hours into my drive i ran into some bumper-to-bumper traffic. putting along on the highway, the car randomly starts to idle low, dies, and won't restart. after a few minutes of fiddling under the hood & some cranking, the car restarts, idles fine for about 2 minutes, starts to low/rought idle again, dies, and won't restart again. i let it sit for about 15 minutes, and some cranking & judicious go-pedal work gets the car started again, it idles fine for about five minutes so i start driving again, and make it the rest of the way (about another 1/2 hour) no problem. what's going on here? main relay, fuel pump relay, plugs, cap, rotor, fuel filter, engine temp sensor, & t-stat are all relatively new, along with some other stuff i'm sure i'm forgetting, cps tested fine about 9 months ago, dme is a 513 iirc, it has apparently been switched by a PO. thoughts? fuel starvation/fuel pump issues? is my cps crapping out finally? gotta drive to charlotte & back to asheville tomorrow, hope it works out! ('87 325is, before anyone asks) thanks in advance!

[quikveedb2]

update bump. car ran fine to clt & back to asheville, with 1 stutter about 3/4 of the way home. like the motor quit for a second or less, then came back to life. i'm at a loss...

[long tall eta]

almost the exact same thing my 325es is doing. when idling at 900 u know she is fine, but if she idles at 700 you know she is going to act up. she will, every once in a while, buck at driving speeds and if you hit the gas, she will pick right back up again and continue w/ no problems.. WTF. also, sometimes on cold starts, she will kick right over then stall and needs some cranking to get her going.

[Dissembler]

I had a problem where the engine would shutoff (ignition would stay on though) while driving. Took a random amount of time upto 10 minutes before it would fire again. It happened 3 times on the highway and also manifested itself as fuel starvation when hot at 6000+rpm on the race track.

I finally tracked it down to the connector on the fuel pump itself coming loose as well as being dirty. I cleaned the contacts and secured the connector with a zip tie. The problem has yet to return.

Hope that helps

[quikveedb2]

interesting, i'll look into that