Please Help, Random Cutting Out & Dying

[rock4451]

1995 Cobra 5.0 - ignition system: Taylor wires, stock dizzy, stock coil, battery holds good charge (alt is stock style, battery is fairly new).
I've noticed it before but now it's really bugging me. On the way to campus yesterday, for a split second, tach went to zero and my car obviously had a miss. The gas pedal was down, and it just twitched for a second (that's the best way I can put it, stopped accelerating and gauge went to zero), before I could even put my foot on the clutch it came back and ran fine as normal, did it again about 5 mins later. Since then, it's been running fine and hasn't done it since. It hasn't happened enough for me to note any specifics, but I'm pretty sure it's RPM independent (pretty sure it's done it both at the top and bottom of tach) and has happened in most gears (of course over a few month period, if it happened constantly I would park it), so that makes me think it's spark/ignition/electrical related. The battery light on my cluster has also been lit up as of lately. I replaced the ignition control module yesterday and it is still doing it. On the way to work today it died on me when I pushed in the clutch to coast to a stop. Any ideas? Any help is appreciated very much.

 

[HISSIN50]

Pull the codes.

Why is your battery light coming on?

Have you ever replaced the dizzy?

 

[rock4451]

Yes, replaced the dizzy about 3-4 months ago, came from a stock 95 with 40,000 miles. I will pull the codes shortly. I do not know why my battery light has been coming on but it has only been lately, coincidentally the same time that my car has been starting to act up worse.

 

[HISSIN50]

I'd wanna figure the battery-light thing out just in case some entire system is losing power. For instance, if the PDC connection gets loose, it can cause circuits to lose power and the battery light to illuminate.

Parts stores can dynamic or load test the alternator, but who knows how it will test since the issue is intermittant. Do look over the alt wiring connections, the alt fuse (make sure the receiver-tangs are not loose against the fuse blade), and look for fluids leaking into the belt.

Since both things are happening at once, there's a good chance it is indeed related.

 

[rock4451]

Thanks a lot HISSIN, I went to AZ and they tested the alt. It failed twice and passed the third time, I asked them to check multiple times because the issue was intermittent. Reinstalled new alt, and problem still existed. I swapped in a dizzy with a slight miss in it that I had sitting around (drove fine just at 2k had slight miss for whatever reason) and it cleared it up (dying/cutting out I mean). A new dizzy is on the way as we speak!

 

[fordfreak300]

Don't forget to check your ignition switch.

 

[rock4451]

Distributor cleared it up, car runs fine now.