Just starting doing this the other day. I'll be cruising along and the car will die, all the guages drop everything. As soon as I put it in neutral the rpm's come back up but really really choppy, like I'm running on 4 cylinders. If I give it gas it doesn't do anything, but I can smell fuel so I know it is loading up, plus I have 38 psi of fuel pressure the entire time. So I pull over turn the car off, wait a few seconds and it fires right up. Then I drive a bit and it does it again. A passkey code and code 51 are both stored in the history but I dont think either of them is causing the problem. Anybody got any ideas? I'm thinking maybe opti related.

 

Possibly the ignition switch.

 

Those are the symptoms mine displayed when the opti went.

 

I would agree with this if your whole gauge cluster goes dead-warning lights and all. The pcm gets it's operating power through the switch, as well. It could also be one of the connectors to it, too. One terminal in particular likes to get hot and the connection will "relax". This can cause intermittent continuity.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to limp it up to the shop tonight, then tomorrow after work I can start digging into it. I have thrown high res and low res opti codes a couple of time lately so I know I need to get a new one. Luckily they have a 12-12 warranty and I just put one in back in Nov. I'll also look into the igntion switch. If anybody else has any ideas let me know. Thanks!