Thread: Trouble History With Camshaft Position Sensor

Originally Posted by Zef_66

But a bad crank position sensor will not let the car run at all.

You are right to a point. If the side of the CPS that controls the tach signal goes bad, it may stall or you'll loose traction control but it will in many cases will still run. If the side that controls spark goes out, then obviously the engine wont run.

Originally Posted by SyntheticShield

You are right to a point. If the side of the CPS that controls the tach signal goes bad, it may stall or you'll loose traction control but it will in many cases will still run. If the side that controls spark goes out, then obviously the engine wont run.

If you want to move this to another thread, feel free to keep this one clean.

I am not electronic guru or anything, but I would image the crank position sensor just measures the position of the crank at certain times and reports them to the PCM. From there, the PCM will tell the tach what RPM to read. Also, the PCM will tell the ICM when to fire what cylinder based on the appropriate spark tables. And the traction control is also controlled through the PCM based on the measured and controlled sprak. Again, don't know for sure, but my guess is that spark, TC, and tach are all controlled by the same sensor reading of the CPS and when that sensor goes bad, everything gets fubared.