Yesterday my wife had been driving around the city before she came to pick me up. She mentioned that the car had hesitated a few times for her during the day. As we got off the freeway the engine died. It did restart, and we managed to pull over. The car would start, but the engine would die sputter to a halt as if it was not getting enough fuel. I tried swapping the RSR relay, no effect. Then I started it up and just revved it up to about 2000, kept it there for 5-10 seconds and then it resumed idling. I was able to drive home but every now and again when I would push on the gas it would hesitate shortly (revs dropped but not to zero), then continue pulling, again as if it was not getting enough gas.

After I let the car sit for about 3 hours, I went to try it again. This time it started right up, and I was able to go up a hill at 50 and slam the gas all the way down without any problems. It took me an hours worth of slamming on the gas going up and down steep hills to get it to start sputtering again, but nowhere near as bad as before.

Now I have had a feeling that the transfer pump is dead, as it has been doing this hesiatation thing for a while during hard acceleration especially after cornering or on steep hills.

Trying to troubleshoot this thing, I yanked the transfer pump fuse out and the hesitation was slightly worse with no change in main pump noise level. Then I put the fuse back in and there was no difference to the way it was without the fuse. So, I'm thinking that the pump is dead and the performance difference between those runs is due to something else still.

What I don't understand is why it started running so much better all of a sudden? It's as if the main pump was overheating or something, since it ran so much better after sitting for a while. I am thinking of replacing the transfer pump and filter, should I also put in a new fuel pressure regulator and main pump?