I have taken the engine from one of my SE-r's and put it in one of my other SE-r's. This is my first SR20 Swap and there's a problem I'd really like to fix.

Here's all the clues I've got:

The car fires right up -- starts and drives great -- for a while.

It get solidly up to operating temperature, and the temp appears to stabilize.

It runs for quite a while-- like it'll idle at least 20 or 30 minutes without seeming to have any problems at all.

Then, it just stalls out. And when it stalls, it is COMPLETELY dead -- turning the key doesn't even get dash lights most of the time. Then, after a while-- like 5 minutes or so-- it "comes back to life", and she'll start right up again.

It seems more likely to happen on restarts than on a cold starts -- like it'll happen in the first couple of minutes when you just restart the car after it runs a while. I'm not sure it's ever done the stall on a fresh cold start.

It's not throwing any codes-- and it doesn't really give any warning before it dies. It just turns itself off. I think I may have heard a little "cough" out of her once right before she stalled.

I don't even know where to begin... It seems electrical (is that a duh?), but can anyone help me out with ideas? I'm thinking maybe a bad ECU (she got a new engine after a disastrous run though a puddle) or maybe some sensor that's telling it to turn off? I'm an electrical problem noob, but I do own a multi-meter and am willing to use it if I can sort out where to stick the leads.

I'm at a loss. I'm making stab in the dark guesses, and I would really appreciate some help from those that might actually know how to trouble shoot something like this.


BTW, the car is pretty much stock -- while I had the engine out, I put in a new clutch and PP, changed the usual maintenance items and such, but I don't have it running anything unusual. And this engine definately didn't do any of this when it was in the old car -- thing always ran great.

With the car not starting, and the key in the ON position, I heard buzzing last night from the area of the fuses by the battery. Can those fuses be intermittent?

I guess I'll just start swapping those tonight. The battery fuse looks fine, terminals & etc.....

Can anyone tell me where the ECU (ECM) fuse is? Or the ECU? Is it under the driver side dash like in other cars? I loose communication w/ consult sometimes when she goes into the non-response mode, so I'm thinking I need to check those.

the buzzing noise occurs when the ignition is trying to draw power but the battery doesnt have enough juice ive had enouch dead batterys inmy se-r to know the sound u describe im think you have a bad connection more than likely a ground somewhere and as the car gets hot and draws more electricity its relyin gmore on that crappy ground. And when electrical componets get hot even bad connections, they stop working.

so take a good look at every engine/frame ground and every eyelit ground to your firewall. i have a feeling your issue is around there.

Thanks dxpxe -- your explanation of why it would be worse hot helps. I'm an electrical noob-- didn't even know the connections deteriorated hot.

I'll get out the sand paper and check every ground in the car.