1995 Neon Quits After a couple hours driving

[derf777]

While driving 110km per hour on highway, after about 1.5 hours or so and usually under 200kms, the car shudders and dies.. after being towed back home 3 times in two months, it starts every time and can be driven around without incident. Put in a used computer and no improvement. Will start after about 5 minutes of dieing on the road but runs rough. After 20 minutes it will run OK again. Never tried to see how far it would go after dieing out... afraid of getting stalled in middle of Toronto !!

[palindromelol]

Let me restate what you said to confirm your problem.

Your car shudders and dies after one and one half hours of driving at 110 kph. You travel about 200 kilometers during the trip. You have experianced this problem on 3 occations resulting in having the car towed.

Once the engine stops, it remains stopped until about 5 minutes after shutdown. It will start at this time but it runs roughly. After 20 minutes after shutdown, it will start and run normally. You don't know how far or for what duration the car will run at this time so you are apprehensive about using it for long drives or in dense traffic. It may fail in less than one and on half hours, or less than 200 km. You aren't sure and don't want to find out the hard way.

Fixes:

You have replaced the PCM with a used PCM after the 3 unplanned shutdowns and you have had more shutdowns under other circumstances?

Questions:

Have you extracted Codes?

Have you done maintenance on the vehicle recently?

Initial Areas to investigate:

1) Fuel supply. Neon fuel pumps will intermittantly fail before total failure.
2) Fuel pressure / filter
3) TSB on the wiring harness that causes electrical shutdown.
4) Connection to the coil?
5) Spark syncronization, cam sensor, (ac clutch connector, long story), crank sensors, etc etc.

Fuel, pump to injectors, flow, clogs, leaks, injector opening.

Air, intake to throttle body incl MAP

Spark, computer, ignition system, battery, plugs

Timing. computer, sensor array

Ground state of electical system.

[das2123]

As stated, try to see if you have any error codes by doing the key dance. Without that, my first guess would be spark plugs and/or wires. Check those and replace them if needed.

[99 Neon R/T]

I had a similar problem with my 99 It turned out to be the fuel pump ground wire.It is located in the trunk on the driver side under the carpet.The screw will sometimes work loose and cause the fuel pump to kick off.I would be driving and it would just die.About 20 minutes or so later it would start and run fine.If that dosent work then I would try the fuel pressure regulator.