Mitsubishi Repair: 95 Mitsubishi Eclipse, mitsubishi eclipse, head gasket

Question
A friend of mine bought a 95 Mitsubishi at a tow lot auction. The car starts and runs smoothly but after running 30 minutes to an hour, it loses power and dies.  It will restart after cooling off.  Have had it at the repair shop and it is not throwing any codes to point to any place to start to look for a problem.  Any ideas.  Car has 96000 miles on it, small amount of smoke from engine.  Car does not jump, stutter when this happens and no warning lights come on.

Answer
Sherri: First off does the warning lights work? Sometimes they do not come on because they have been unhooked or the bulb is burnt out. I think I would have the fuel pump pressure checked, that the fuel pump could be bad. As in not putting out enough fuel. Yet the cooling off then starting makes me think of a relay, bad switch or a bad sensor. Does your friend knows that Mitsubishi farmed out the building of their computers to another company which did not build very good ones. A piece will start to leak and with time kill off the computer. I would have the car coded even if no warning lights are showing up. As that would rule out any problems with the computer or the sensors. AutoZone would do this for free. It takes three things for a car to run down the road; stark, air and fuel. Maybe you should have the fuel filter replaced, as it might plug up with time, causing the car to lose power and then it dies. You talked about the small amount of smoke from the engine? Are you saying when you start the car, the engine has a bit of smoke coming off it? Which could be just oil burning off the engine. As the valve covers could be leaking a bit of oil. I got a van that does that, but it still runs. Or are you saying that smoke is coming out of the exhaust, if so what color is the smoke. If it is coming out of the exhaust and white in color, then the car could have a cracked head gasket. But then your friend should be able to see water in the oil and the car would be loosing water as well as heating if that was the problem. So I would have the car coded to rule out any sensors or the computer, get the fuel pump checked and replace the fuel filter. Go from there. I hope this helps and good luck! Linda