will the camshaft sensor make ur engine run like sh*t if it goes bad.... i mean like taking a long time to rev up, or bog down really bad... just a ? i had...

 

if i am not mistaken if the cam position sensor goes bad the car should not run, i think you have to have the signal from the cam sensor sent to the pcm then the pcm send a signal to the coil pack to fire.

 

If the cam pos sensor goes bad, the car will run. But the PCM won't know the positions of the valves, so it switches from sequential fuel injection to batch injection. It also goes into a default "limp-home" mode which runs exceptionally rich.

The coilpack fires based on crank position - 2 plugs at a time. If there is no crank signal within 1 second of turning over, tha ASD relay shuts off and the car will not run.

Best of luck!

 

thanx alot.... atleast summ ppl r willing to lend a hand in helpin... out.... round here.... there all tryin to charge me to put a scan tool on it... i have my own.... and plus i work in a garage so i have all the tools i need on hand.... thanx alot guys

 

First of all, I should confess that I drive a 1996 Stratus 2.0L SOHC. (72k miles) - not a Neon. However, I have found many of the Neon (engine related) posts to be useful since my base stratus shares the same 2.0L engine.

One day recently, I started my car, and it idled high (1100 rpm)and rough. (It was cold - about 15F) It made a pulsing "whomp-whomp-whomp" sound at a rate of about 2Hz (two 'Whomps' per second - RPM dependant.).
(I've had various intermittent 'rough starts' over the 10 years I've owned the car - this one was one of the roughest.)
Depressing the gas (not surprizingly) resulted in eratic aceleration, but I was able to drive around the block to an auto parts store. There, I left the car running, and popped the hood to take a look.

I recently changed plugs/wires, so I suspected spark issues.(I'm quite sure they are connected correctly - or it would run poorly all the time.) To check the coil, I yanked the plug wires 1 at a time to check if the coil was putting out a good spark. Sure enough, spark was jumping out of the plug wire ends and finding ground in the spark plug "tubes" (which often fail to hold the oil away from the spark plugs.)Since thespark looked real strong on all four cylinders, I'm thinking that the coil is not a problem.

WhileI was pondering what 'parts' I could buy at the store, the idle 'magically' smoothed out.
I jumped in, and drove home without any further hick-ups.

So, I'm wondering if the Camshaft Position Sensor can cause intermittent failures like this?
After reading this post (and a few others) I also noticed that I too have an oil leak at my Camshaft Position Sensor.
It this reason enough to replace it?

There is also a Crankshaft Pos Sensor mentioned in this post - do you have any suggestions on which one(s) should I replace first? Are there other things I should look at?

Thanks,
-Scott

 

Is your CEL on? You only have one Camshaft Position Sensor, so start with that one.

 

maybe fuel pump.

 

Hmmm... I'm not sure if my CELwas on...??? Let me explain...
I unplugged my Cam Pos Sensor to see if it would run 'rough' like the other day.
Turns out it quit running all-together with this sensor unplugged. At this point, I realized that my garage-door opener remote
was blocking my view of the CEL. And yes, it is now illuminated. (Unfortunately, I don't know if it logged the code before or aftermy little experiment.)

Usingthe "key-click-morse-code" (poor-man's) methodI read code 54 - Camshaft Reference Circuit (no surprize).
Tonight, I'll pick up a new Camshaft Pos Sensor (and gasket). If this doesn't help, I may need to start looking at fuel or vacuum problems.
I'll keep you posted...

-Scott

 

Reset the PCM first and see if the code comes back before buying one.

 

I cleared the "Camshaft Sensor Fail" code last night and it has not re-appeared. (Of course, it hasn't really acted bad since.)My maintainance manual suggested that the Cam Sensor should produce a rectangular waveform containingone 5.0v reference pulse, followed by 3 pulses of 0.3v while the engine is running. So, I used some paperclips to probe into the backend of the connector and was able to verify a signal matching this description. (I was able to get ahold of a Radio Shack Probe Scope - which is like a small poor-man's Oscilloscope). Of course - I'm measuring this while the engine is performing relatively well.

I still have oil leakage from around the Camshaft Sensor. I'm fairly certain that the oil is not coming from the valve cover gasket overhead, and I doubt that a leaking head gasket wouldget oil on the actual connector of the Cam Sensor. Should I replace this sensor in hopes of correcting the leak, or is there a larger issue behind the sensor?
Inoticed that 3 of the 4 bolts are fairly accessible, but the 4th one is hard to get because of some other nearby plumbing. (I tightened 3 of them hoping to resolve the leak.)

While I'm waiting for "murphy" to strike again, does anyone have any other suggestions?
Another symptom that may be related, is at 2200rpm, I will feel a random bumping in the engine. It seems like it's missing. This is most noticeable in 4th gear while just maintaining speed. I can usually accelerate out of the 'bumpy' rpm range, but occaisionally it is noticable in other speed ranges. Again, this one's intermittent, and the computer never 'sees' this problem.

Thanks again for your help!
-Scott