My never ending search for "What's Wrong With The Neon Today?"

Back story:
Car would buck and die randomly. Wouldn't work for about 5 minutes, then start right back up. Would do this 3-4 times, then run fine the rest of the trip. Occurrences ranged from daily to weeks without problems. Traced it back to the crank sensor plug, the wires were crimped, one looked almost broken through.

Replaced with a new pigtail. Wires were dry rotted, but I seemed to get it spliced in. Now car doesn't die anymore (well hasn't since Friday). Runs fine for a few minutes until warmed up. Hesitates, bogs down and backfires through the intake from stop and when going slow or at idle.

One possible suggestion was the coil packs. I checked them with an ohmmeter, using the information found here:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2d11onl&s=7

Primary measured between .6 and 1.0 ohms for both, and Secondary measured 13.5k for both.

Are these numbers correct? If so it would seem that my coil packs are going bad, would this cause hesitation and backfiring through the intake?

 

I just measured my coil, it had .9 .9 and 12.5k. How are the plug wires and spark plugs? After digging around neons.org and other forums they all seem to think the bucking and backfire is from bad plug wires, crank sensor(which you have replaced) or throttle position sensor. I'll keep looking around and post back here if I find something else.

 

I'm not convinced my crank sensor problem is fixed. I want to run all new wires from start to finish, I just need to find out where they go.

 

Last night I used the ohmmeter to test the crank sensor and found out it was fine. So out of sheer desperation, and the "this makes absolutely no sense" category, I replaced the plugs and wires, which were replaced just last year.

The car runs fine now. WTF?? It makes absolutely no sense!

So I've still got problems, so a new post will be had.

 

Hey, that's good news!