V6 stalling

["Peter Kemos" <peterk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've got a strange malfunction on my '89 Verde which, due to it's
intermittent nature is proving rather tough to diagnose:

While driving, in gear, the car will suddenly loose power for only an
instant, and then just as quickly restore everything back to normal.  This
results in a big lurch of course as power fails, and then another one as it
resumes.
Further it happens so quickly that i actually don't know if the engine cuts
out entirely, or if it merely drops down to idle.  Logic tells me that if it
cut alltogether i would have to hit the starter to get the engine running
again, which i do not, yet the tach drops down to the peg at 500 rpm, thus
indicating an engine speed below idle??  Of course, if the issue was a
system wide power loss, it could account for dead gauges.

In general it happens at a point where the coolant has just reached
operating temperature, but the engine has not completely warmed up.

This cycle repeated itself 3 times this morning, on the way in to work, but
once the engine was fully warmed up it ran just fine and showed no other
signs of a problem.  Overall the engine is well maintained, and does not
show any other signs of poor running or starting.

I'm hoping someone else out there has experienced the same thing at some
point and could comment on possible causes for this behavior since i doubt i
could get the power loss to repeat itself under testing conditions.

Thanks,
Peter Kemos
Santa Cruz
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