Weird complete loss of power. Help?

Are you sure it's the CEL flickering and not the battery light?

Just asking. Flickers are hard to focus on when driving......

 

im pretty sure.

 

I concur. Start looking for loose ground wires especially. Also might want to verify your igniter pack is fully plugged in and secure.

 

Main reason I asked is I have not seen a CEL flicker. Typically it's off, flashing or on solid.

But that doesnt mean it can't flicker!

Watching to learn!

 

Gonna be interesting !

As the OP states the Tach does not move.

Nor any of the other warning lights light. Is another circuit grounding via the check engine light??

 

I wouldn't rule out an ignition problem. As you press the gas and more fuel goes into the cylinders it may need a stronger spark to ignite, so if you have a weak spark it could show up as a misfire in that situation. As you press the gas the ignition timing of the spark is advanced too, so there are other variables at play with the misfire.

I'm not completely familiar with the 6-cylinder. Does it have spark plug wires or are all the coil packs mounted directly above the spark plugs? If you have wires it could be a bad wire which can certainly cause a brief misfire and hesitation feeling only under certain conditions. If you believe the entire engine (all cylinders) is cutting out, then it's probably not a bad spark plug wire.

I was thinking possibly cam or crank sensor, but if those are failing it wouldn't be consistently only when you give it gas.

The reason someone asked about the tachometer is because the tach uses the IG- signal from the ignition system (igniter), so if the tach needle were to suddenly drop even though the engine is still rotating fast, that would be a sign that the coils stopped sparking. But if the tach needle doesn't drop it doesn't rule out a bad spark plug wire, something after the coils.

 

The 3.4 V6 has 3 coil on plug coils mounted on the passeger side plugs and has a plug wire running from each of them to each drivers side cylinder.

 

If this were a failing fuel pump or fuel pressure problem then the CEL wouldn't come on or flicker except maybe for a misfire code, but he said there is no stored code. Do all misfire codes even the general misfire code get stored?

Some people suggested the flicker was like when the engine stalls, but if it is in gear (manual trans) going down the road then the engine rpm would be maintained, the spark plugs would keep firing, and the CEL wouldn't flicker because the ECU wouldn't think the engine had stalled. It would have no way of knowing because the rpms would remain high.

 

just in front of the DIAGNOSTIC port on the upper intake manifold there are 2 groups of brown wires, these ground the PCM and other engine related things. Give each one of them individually a little pull and a bend. When techs use power tools to tighten that nut they will twist the harness's and sometime the wires will break internally.

 

that was the issue.

 

UPDATE!!!

So I wanted to verify the issue was fixed before I posted. the car left me stranded on the highway. I checked all wires on side of road again. Turns out a ground wasn’t fully connected. Wire was twisted from someone running impact on the bolt. A member suggested the when I got on today, talk about a psychic. I never touched that ground before checking it the first time. Anyway, there is a place for impacts, and not for impacts! Explains why my grandfather (old school mechanic) hates how all us younger gens rely on em too much.

 

psychic, no... I made a pretty good living at the Porsche/Ferrari dealer fixing other "techs" errors.

 

Glad you found the problem. Now I'll check mine. Just bought a '04 3.4 automatic with 276500 miles and when cruising at 65 with the cruise set, it "dropped out" for a millisecond every so often. Did it 5 times in about 40 miles. Different road on same trip but running at 60 it didn't do it. Felt like a crank sensor dropping out. So hopefully mine has the same issue. Thanks!