This problem developed out of the blue the other day...

Right now, if my car is bone cold (say, after sitting out all night) it will start up and run beautifully for a few minutes, then suddenly die. It won't cough or sputter, like it's running out of fuel (I have around 10 gallons in the tank anyway), it will just suddenly stop. I can usually then get it to start right back up, but it cuts off after about 10 seconds, then won't start any more. If I wait for a few minutes, I can usually get another 10 seconds out of it, then it dies again. This process goes on indefinitely. If I turn it on for the first time when it's cold outside, it runs longer than if I start it during the day. So, it seems like the car is just dying when it reaches a certain temperature, and then is fine when it cools off a bit. The problem is that the magic number seems to be about 110 degrees

I checked fuel pressure at the fuel rail and it says ~50psi (this is an '88 2.8L, by the way), so that seems fine. The fuel filter is pretty new, so that's not a problem. I know my EST is bad (I'd been getting code 42 for a while before this happened, and determined that the problem was in fact the module itself), and my tach is sometimes jumpy. Oddly, last night I was in it, holding the revs steady, and the tach was bouncing from around 2k to around 3k, then suddenly the SES light came on (code 42--I checked after the car died), and the tach was suddenly rock-steady at about 2400. Sounds like a problem in the distributor, right?

Any thoughts?

 

had sort of the same problem with an old thunderbird,turned out to be the ignition module,ran fine till it got hot then kicked out.
dont know if its the same thing with your car but might be a place to start.

 

Aye, that was next on our list of things to check. New cap, rotor and ignition module and now it seems to be working absolutely fine.

 

Try checking your vacume lines to all sensors and fuel regulator also the charcoal canister.