Ok first off Im glad to now be a member of this site, lots of usefull information on here.
I recently bought my sisters 97 3.8l v6 firebird it has about 123,000 miles, have always been a pontiac person I know they are good cars.
now to the point, after driving the car daily for about a month I drove over two sets of railroad tracks that are right next to each other and was just coasting at about 20mph and when i went to accelerate slowly the car died on me, and then cranked right back up. Then about a week later I filled it up with gas, washed it and went for a spin I drove around for maybe 20mins and floored it from about 40 up to 80 on my way home. the car pulled just as it should, but when i coasted up to the light almost to a dead stop the car just died no sputtering or anything just cut off. this time it would not crank right up i had to turn to key to run about 3 times to prime the fuel lines and then it cranked right up. so my dad & I thought maybe its the fuel pump ($300 to replace). So we started simple, first the fuel filter (which was not very dirty) and while changing the filter we also checked the prime, seemed like it was putting out sufficient fuel on the prime and the pump was fine. every once in a while the car still does this even when not accelerating hard. I do not have the money or the resources at the time to do a fuel pressure test on the rails. So is there anything else that I may can look for myself first before doing the expensive stuff. ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED & sorry for the length of this forum I just wanna make sure i explain everything clearly b/c I know the specifics will help in diagnosis.

Take it to a walmart and have them run a charging system test on it, it's free and takes only a few minutes.

sounds like perhaps the railroad tracks may have knocked something loose or perhaps damaged your battery. It's a posibility that shouldn't be overloked, especially cuz it's free to find out!

I agree...battery would be my first guess. You may have a loose plate inside that's shorting out periodically.

Thanks for the reply, i did have problems with a corroded connection but i cleaned & fixed it with a new connection, but i see where it could be a plate shorting b/c the battery is a few years old.

Did you check the pressure with a tester? What was the psi?

I have not done a fuel pressure test dont wanna spend the money if its something simple, & dont have the pressure tester to do it myself. what is a resonable cost to have this done at an auto shop, not the dealer as i know they are a lot higher, from personal experience i am very familiar with how auto dealers make money, and most of their income is usually from the service department. just got the old jelly jar and watched to see how full it got when you primed the fuel system.

You should be able to go to a place like Autozone and use the tool rental program. You can rent the tool and get your money back when they get the tool back.

Matt

Thanks for the info I will update as soon as i find what the pressure is or the problem.

Poor man's fuel pressure test - when you take off the gas cap do you get a HISSING sound...? If yes, then you have sufficient pressure, maybe not the best but suficient.

Me again... not to kick a dead horse (see my previous post "mike94formula" from today) but both times your car died it was "coasting". Check your idle air passages inside your throttle body... clean the throat with throttle body cleaner, clean the butterfly plates, remove and clean the IAC module, and throughly clean the idle air passages on both sides of the bytterfly plate (or just buy a new throttle body).

Years ago when carburetors were easy to get to everyone cleaned the butterfly plates and carbuertor just by popping off the air cleaner and spraying cleaner followed by a good wipe-down... now because it is so time consuming to get to, the the throttle throat and butterfly plates are the most ignored and overlooked item on today's cars.... just make sure you are getting idle air into the engine.

Just for giggles and grins I bet your off-throttle idle is rough...? ...go to AutoZone and rent a vacuum pressure gauge (it can also test your fuel line pressure) and do a "before" and "after" vacuum test. You should see a visible reduction in the jumpy movement of the needle. If it is still rough, throw in a can of your favorite upper cylinder cleaner into your oil just to loosen up any sticky valves you might have. Don't waste your money, read up on how to do the vacuum tests so you know what to look for http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/vacuum/

Ok so my battery went out about a month ago so i replaced it the car hsant died since (cross my fingers). and I finally got to work on it some more, I took the throttle body off cleaned it, all that was kinda gummed up, it said hitachi on it I assume that is aftermarket. the accordian rubber that connects the air box was open on the bottom so i sanded the plastic a little to give it somethoing to hold on too, Im not sure how long it was off but im sure it sucked some dirt or a little rain water, i looked past the throttle body and the motor was a little gummed up maybe some dirt in there. I couldnt find a new screen for the throttle body tho there were a few pings in it, anyone know where to get one? also I had a miss on cylinder 6 replaced plugs and wires still missed so i put a new coil pack for cylinder 3 & 6 30 bucks at autozone pretty good. that fixed that, I am going to run stp fuel system cleaner next and plan to do the oil additive on the next change any suggestions as to a specific brand on that? Thanks for all the help guys and gals surely theres some of yall on this sight.
THIS SIGHT IS AWESOME!

I use either techron by chevron synthetic fuel system cleaner or good old seafoam in the gas tank, I would steer clear off the STP, (not really effective). As for the cranckcase Lucas makes a good oil additive. Another option which is a little more expensive but probably more effective as far as the oil is concerned would be the Z-Max fuel and oil combo, about $35.00. The Z-Max is claimed to be a micro lubricant that actually impregnates the surfaces of the internal engine components and is not just merely an additive. I hope I have given you some options to go by. Dave

About the STP I was afraid of that because it was on sale at autozone, havent put it in yet and now probably wont thx.
and I have heard of the z-max system that sounds like what i want, I do know that oil additives will sometimes gum up the engine worse, such as a no smoke formula and such but thats not for cleaning. Thanks for the coment.
also i forgot to note that my crankshaft position sensor goes out intermitently, I had bought a new one but my dad decided it was better to wait because the service manual calls for reseting the computers timing with the electronic tools from the dealer also he thougth we may have to press the pully back on, wich is hard to do and will mess other things up if not done right, my question is, is all this right and anyone had to do it before how difficult is it and will it eventually tear something up if not fixed. Thanks for all the help.