intermittent stalling on 3.0 tribute
 

I've been trying to solve an intermittent stalling issue on a 2001 tribute with a 3.0engine. The car will die while driving and then start up and drive fine. This happens occasionally. When this does happen you can feel the lost of power but stepping harder on the accelerator doesn't make a difference. It does sputter or jerk, just loses power and dies. Outside temperatures don't seem to be a factor in this.
The fuel pressure is at 70 psi. The fuel filter is new. There are no engine lights or codes. All of the vacuum lines have been checked and nothing is cracked. There are new gaskets on the upper and lower intake manifold and throttle body. I started throwing parts at the issue but that hasn't helped either. So far the IAC motor, fuel damper and throttle position sensor have been replaced. The throttle body has been removed and cleaned. Does anyone have any ideas? I would normally go with a fuel related problem but I'm not seeing any evidence of this. If it where a sensor I would expect a fault code.

Fuel pump (intermittently stopping), ignition wiring, PATS system (losing contact with the key transponder), would be my thoughts. Hard to troubleshoot without swapping parts - if you have a spare key that would rule out the key transponder itself but not the PATS antennae etc

Thank you for the response. I have to grab my service manual and look at the PATS. Here is something that I noticed last night while I was driving. When the engine started to "stall" and right before it shut down, the oil light flashed on twice but the engine light did not come on until the engine died. Does the oil pressure sensor shut the engine off if it sees low oil pressure? The oil level is where it should be on the dip stick. While the car was rolling, I was able to put it into neutral, restart it and continue on my way. No fault codes appear.

thank you for the confirming what I had thought.

Is there any way to check the fuel injectors that are in the back bank? I can get a stethoscope on the rear injector closest to the throttle body but I don't see any way to get to the other two.

I don't think so but tbh I'm not sure what it would tell you, if one is weak it would cause a misfire not a stall, if it is a wiring issue affecting several then all will be good until it cuts out...

You're correct. I'm just grasping at straws. I've had the issue using two different keys so I think that I can rule the keys out. If I replace the PATS in the steering column, how do I get the new sensor to read the old keys? If it were a PATS issue when the car stalled, would the anti-theft red light come up on the dash? If it were an ECM problem I would expect a fault code. Not getting any code when it dies just isn't providing a direction to look into. I guess I'm going to put the fuel pressure gauge on the fuel rail again and see what happens the next couple of days.

I agree - basics is probably where its at, fuel supply or basic electrical power or ground...

I'm still at a loss. I changed the location on all of the power relays, the fuel pressure gauge still is reading at 70 psi and there still aren't any fault codes. The last two times that the engine died, it was right after a cold start during the process of backing out of the driveway. The temperature is in the 80s. Is there some emission control valve or egr valve or sensor that could affect the engine on a cold start? If it is a bad ground, is it the ground from the battery to the engine block or a circuit specific ground. After the engine sputters and dies, it starts right up and seems to run fine. I'm at a complete loss where to look next......