I am new to the forum and equally new to the Dodge Ram community. My 2001 Ram 5.2 2WD truck came with a CEL and code of P0340 Camshaft Position Sensor Circuit Malfunction. My new Haynes manual is still in the mail so I must confess that I have relied on youtube for troubleshooting this issue. After fifteen minutes of driving, I shut the truck off and was unable to start it again. Engine would crank but would not fire. The truck did start again until few hours later. Then it happened again later in the day. I was unable to find a "camshaft position sensor" for this truck. No parts store had it listed as such. Instead I found a couple of youtube videos referring to a "pickup coil" (which is located under the rotor in the distributor cap) as the camshaft position sensor.

Eager to fix the problem, I ran out to my local Autozone and bought the Duralast "pickup coil" (cr150) and installed. In the four days since, I have not had the "no start" issue. I have however had the P0340 error code return as active but it has not lit the CEL to this point. After reading some other threads about the code, my suspicion is that the aftermarket part could be working well enough to resolve the "no start" problem but not provide an adequate signal to the computer resulting in the active code. Before I buy the Mopar part, could someone please let me know if I am apples to apples with the Camshaft Position Sensor being called the Pickup Coil?

Thanks for your help.

 

Yep. Cam Sensor is the pickup coil according to mopar and parts stores. Most just call it the cam sensor because it reads the cam position in order to fire injectors at the right time.

 

Thank you for your response. I am going to see if the OEM part solves the persistent error code.

 

Check the wiring while you are back there. Bring your arm with three elbows, yer gonna need it.

Welcome to DF!

 

My problem has been resolved. I had planned on buying Dodge OEM replacement cam sensor but I was unable to return the defective part for a refund so I decided to allow AutoZone to swap for another cam sensor. The 2nd cam sensor from Autozone worked without any issues. The no-run problem was resolved as it was with the 1st replacement sensor. Additionally the 2nd replacement sensor also resolved the CEL. Problem solved. The fact that the first replacement part from Autozone was broken (or half broken in my case) was not a surprise as I have seen a few other threads stating the same.