Can a bad thermostat cause stalling/failure to restart?

[Nocheez]

I am stalling when my car sits still after it is fully warmed up. I got pulled over by a cop for not having my inspection sticker (I've only had the car 8 days!) and it stalled while he was running my license. It started after it sat for 10 minutes, but ran like shit and I stalled again a half mile down the road, where I pulled into an empty lot and let the car sit with the hood open for a half an hour. It fired back up and I got back on the road, keeping the RPMs around 2,000 until I could get back home.

On the way back, I turned the heater on full blast, but I didn't get any heat. I confirmed that the upper radiator hose has no coolant in it once I got home by squeezing it and getting no resistance. Could this be causing my stalling problems? Is there a sensor that is getting pissy because the thermostat isn't opening? The car fires but will die almost immediately once it is hot. I was able to get it running (albeit very poorly) when I disconnected the AFM, but of course you can't drive the car with it unplugged. Help!

 

[Dirgle]

There is a pretty good chance your AFM is bad. My car had a bad one and it acted weird. It would run fine until the car warmed up. Then the car would stumble every 30 seconds, sometimes staling. If I opened the hood it would run fine. As soon as I closed the hood it would start stumbling again. It was wired. And I couldn't drive it because it would stall when coming to a stop. I changed the AFM and all was well. So check your AFM via the TSRM or swap it with someone to check. To answer your question no there isn't a sensor that gets pissy when the thermostat doesn’t open. But get the radiator filled and burped right away.

 

[Nocheez]

thank you. i've got a spare electronic piece for the AFM lying around somewhere (god I hate moving) but it's worth a shot.

 

[lanky189]

could be a few things.
1 are you loosing coolant?
2 are you getting fuel to the rail?
3 is it overheating?

 

[Nocheez]

Coolant seems to be stable. The overflow bottle is exactly where I left it after parking it last year.

The car boosts up to 15psi and shows full rich on the narrowband a/f gauge, so fuel is fine. As long as I keep moving, the car has no issues.

The stock temperature gauge never goes above half, even when it's struggling/refusing to keep running.