Hi guys. You're overlooking the most common cause of this. As Ken pointed out, it is real common for these sensors to fail by becoming heat-sensitive, then they work again after cooling down for about an hour. When you're driving, natural air flow keeps them cool. It's when you stop, as in when stopping for gas, that "hot soak" causes engine heat to migrate up to the sensor and causes it to fail.
It is also correct that these often do not set a fault code just from cranking the engine. The Engine Computer needs time to notice the missing signal as the stalled engine is coasting to a stop, but as you've already observed, that's not when the problem occurs.
You've overlooked the camshaft position sensor on the side of the cylinder head. Normally we don't approve of throwing random parts at a problem, and you're right for not wanting to do that, but in this case it's a high enough failure item that if it doesn't solve the problem, you can throw it in the glove box until you do need it.
The way to narrow this down is to connect a scanner to view live data. I'm more familiar with Chryslers, but Mitsubishis are almost identical in this respect. My Chrysler DRB3 scanner lists these two sensors with a "No" or "Present" during cranking. When you don't have a diagnostic fault code to tell you which circuit to diagnose, this will tell you what the Engine Computer is not seeing, and and why it's not firing the ignition coils.
By the way, you have two ignition coils and two coil driver circuits. It is unlikely both systems would fail at the same time, so put those at the bottom of the list of suspects.
Where this differs slightly is the Engine Computers on Chryslers turn on an automatic shutdown, (ASD) relay when both sensor signals show up, which is any time the engine is rotating, (cranking or running). That relay sends 12 volts to the ignition coils, injectors, fuel pump or pump relay, alternator field, oxygen sensor heaters, and a few other places. You have a separate fuel pump relay and a multi-point fuel injection relay that do the same thing, but the ignition system isn't part of this circuit. The point of sharing this wondrous information is when you have no spark during cranking, if it caused by one of these sensors, you won't have injector pulses, (no fuel smell at the tail pipe), the fuel pump will not resume running, (but you'll still have normal pressure from the one-second burst when the ignition switch is turned on. You should be able to hear it hum for one second), and if you feel those two relays, the fuel pump relay will click on, then off one second later when a helper turns on the ignition switch, but you won't feel it click on again when he cranks the engine.
Your camshaft position sensor looks identical to Chryslers, but the part numbers are different. I don't know if this will apply to your car, but Chrysler came out with a superseded part, and it required changing the connector. If you have to do that, the sensor should come with the connector. Be sure to solder the spliced wires, and seal the joints with heat-shrink tubing with the hot-melt glue inside to seal out moisture. All dealership parts departments have it, but it's much less expensive from an auto parts store. Never use electrical tape on a car as it will unravel into a gooey mess on a hot day.
Monday, September 4th, 2017 AT 12:10 AM
