I have a 92 Dakota LE 5.2 with 106,000 miles. No problems until this week. It would crank, no start after sitting all day. Lifted the hood, hit the key and it started. Drove about 3 miles and it died, no start. Towed back home, fired right up, ran for about 5 minutes and died, no start. Fuel pump is cycling so checked for coil spark. Nothing. Coil plug checked good so I replaced the coil. Started it up, ran for about 10 minutes and died, no start. After sitting for about 30 minutes, it started. I kept the RPM at about 1200 for 30 minutes with no issues. Then let it idle another 30 minutes with no problems. Let it sit overnight and started it up. Ran about 5 minutes and died, no start. No spark at the coil again. Bad coil? Any other ideas?

 

I had this exact same problem with my '96 Dakota, it would run fine when it ran, but would randomly die and not start back up for a while. The fuel injectors still fired, but just no spark. It turned out to be the ECM internally. The ignition coil driver wasn't making good connection. I was able to fix it by simply tightening the 2 screws on the front of the ECM. It could also be either the crankshaft position sensor, on the passenger side of the engine by the bellhousing, or the camshaft position sensor in the distributor. One way to know is when it cranks but doesn't start, have someone crank it for you and put a screwdriver on a fuel injector to see if you can feel them clicking. If they're clicking, then that means both sensors are okay and it's an issue with the ignition coil driver or wiring to the coil.

 

I'll check it out if it will die again. I've had it running 3 times for an hour each time today and it hasn't died. It had a new ECM about 5 years ago. Not sure why. My uncle owned it at the time and he is gone now. Thanks for the insight.