Nissan Repair: 95 Maxima Stalling, mass airflow sensor, volt ohm meter

Question
My 95 Maxima cold starts just fine and runs like a champ. However after it's driven a little while it will die when I stop or slow way down and is very hard to restart. While I'm cranking I can smell fuel and lots of white smoke comes out the exhaust. I have to hold the gas pedal down and crank a bunch to restart it. Once it restarts it seems to drive good again until I come to a stop or slow down. My car is at the shop and my mechanic is stumped. He says it cold starts just fine but after a bit starts losing spark and then of course runs very rich and floods. We are hoping yuo could maybe help point us in the right direction on the faulty part?

Answer
Jim,

I would think the fuel pressure needs to be checked first.  If the pressure is fine and there are no leaky injectors then I would be looking at the ignition system.  Either the ignitor is defective and after it gets hot it starts not sending the amplified signal to the computer to fire the plugs.  There a strange situation where the mass airflow sensor will fail without throwing a code.  The only way is to have the mechanic use a volt ohm meter and check the mass airflow sensor when the car is hot and screwing up.