fuel or ignition??

[arnstr]

4 months ago check engine light, cam sensor code, replaced cam sensor light goes away,
Car stumbling at lights and up hills occasionally for a week then its fine.
Go on holidays car jerking but doesn't stall,very rainy day lots of puddles on road. Can't remember if the check engine light came on..but..
Replaced the Fuel filter and got home no problem
Found 1 inch of water in floor of car, sealed up the A/C box and under front window,seems ok
Seemed fine.. very rough idle after long trips ( 2 hours highway driving)
bypass hose , from engine to water pump, plastic fitting breaks, replace with used plastic fitting that breaks after 15 km, replace with metal fitting, its good, wash motor at car wash,
Check engine light comes, on-cam sensor code, it comes on and off randomly, when it was on steadily 4 months ago seemed to run fine except for what i thought was the fuel filter problem,
Now it is stalling at stop lights or at least stumbling(almost stall)
tonight the light on only twice and only for about 2 seconds, No stalling
I think loose wire in cam sensor circuit & or getting wet
Or fuel filter change required possibly fuel pump
Or god forbid stretched timing chain or crank end play,
or crank shaft sensor
or ignition module
or computer
Long trips with a clogged fuel filter, bad fuel pressures, weak pump would cause eratic idle,
Cam sensor should have little to do with ignition after computer takes over,
blah blah blah
any ideas

[buickmastermind]

The coils. Most likely not the ICM, but the coils. To check them, start the car, just remove one wire from one of them, and you should see a violent even paced blue spark. Do that for each of the coils in turn. If you disconnect a wire, and the car dies, then you have at least one bad coil. If you disconnect the wire, and the car idle barely changes, even if the coil still sparks, that coil is likely dead, especially if when a different coil being disconnected caused the car to die. No spark means bad coil.

The coils cause a stall/vibration feel when at a stop, and the vibration may be sending the cam sensor signal off. What year is the car? What kind of mileage are we looking at? Without knowing that, there is only so much we can do to help.

The cam sensor does have a lot to do with ignition after warm up. As does every other sensor after the motor warms up. The fuel system is mostly mechanical in the sense that if you run it on a low pressure, causing bad idle, and suddenly restore the pressure, it will not continue a bad idle, but immediatly fix the bad idle.

[arnstr]

ita 1992, 123,000 km, I replaced the 1-4 coil and fiddled with wires, cleaned the wire harness at the ICM ,ran it in park during work breaks and seemed to get steadily better, now, did it dry out after the motor wash or did it adjust to the new coil

[arnstr]

OH YAH, no more service light for 2 days now,I.m thinking I got a bad conection on the tan & white wire from cam sensor somwhere thats getting wet
but then again...

[buickmastermind]

I'm willing to bet the bad coil was causing a vibration that was jiggling the connector.

Check to be sure that the other coils are also working properly.

If the car still runs a little rough, another of the coils may still be bad. I would reccommend the borg-warner brand, they make a significanty better coil. It has a telltale gray color.

You can tell if the cam wires are reacting to water. Just spray it down with water, and see if it still messes up. If you don't get a code, everything is fine. Spray water on the coil assembly. If it starts running bad again, you still have a bad coil there. I have had all three coils go out on me at the same time, so it is a ppossibility.