Altitude sensor
 

I have a 1985.5 944 non-turbo. Would the altitude sensor cause the car to just die abruptly? The car will run and drive for about 5 minutes and then it dies. But, it starts right back up and runs and drives for another several minutes and then dies again, so on and so on. I have replaced the speed and crank sensors, rotor, dist. cap, DME relay and spark plugs and cleaned all the battery connections and grounds. I am getting ready to throw some more parts at it such as a new ignition switch, coil and spark plug wires. I have also done the wire jumper fix (per Clarks garage) on the alarm. I was just wondering how important the Altitude Sensor Box is because it sounds like something is loose inside of it but I really did not want to spend 60 bucks on a new one if there is no way it can cause the intermittent problem I am having. If there is a possibility that it is causing the problem I will go ahead and replace it. I live in San Antonio, TX where the altitude is 700 ft above sea level. If a new coil, wires and ignition switch does not fix it, I am afraid the DME computer is probably the problem. Thanks

The altitude sensor is a switch that works at 5000 ft above sea level to slightly lean out the mixture. If you remove it from the circuit (unless you are going to drive to Colorado for a ski session), nothing will happen. You can rule it out by doing that.

Just like you surmise, it's probably a bad DME computer.