speedf50

I've had my SC300 5-speed for a little over two months. It has high miles at 220k. The car drove fine when I purchased it, then started to show these strange symptoms:
- Randomly shutting off while driving, won't restart till I let the car sit for a few minutes then try again
- When it dies the throttle does nothing even though the car is in gear with the ignition on, it throws a CEL just before dying, but it goes away
- The Tach has read incorrectly since I got the car, about 1-2k higher than the actual RPM

Then the problems got worse:
- The car started hesitating while driving, loosing power momentarily then pulling again but very slowly
- Now the car won't start, it tries to and you can get it to run on what sounds like one cylinder for a few seconds with the throttle open while cranking

Observations:
- There is a STRONG smell of fuel, and the filter isn't too old. I have a feeling it is a spark issue and the car is getting fuel. (might bypass the fuel pump ecu to be safe)
- The previous owner gave me a record of the distributor being replaced at the dealership in the last year or so, thinking that isn't the issue.
- The issue worsened without me changing anything, which makes me think the ECU capacitors could be the culprit as they continue to leak
- There is also a strong vibration through the steering wheel and pedals at idle when cold... not sure what this is from
- Just before dying the car would throw a CEL, but it would disappear once the car was restarted

I am leaning towards the ECU being the culprit as along with the distributor the previous owner gave me records of a lot of other maintenance items that have been taken care of in the last couple of years. I'll look over them and confirm other items that have been replaced, but is there anything I could be missing? I have new spark plugs waiting to go in just incase, but feel the problem lies in the car's electronics. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

supra9398

I had almost the exact same thing happen on my 400, minus the fuel smell. Cleaned the throttle body (it was full of gunk) and that fixed the problem.

speedf50

I'll be sure to check/clean it when I do spark plugs this week! I'd be very surprised if that was causing the apparent lack of spark.