oooooooooooooooooooooook! Now I follow ya! Well the sensor is located at the front,bottom,passenger side of the engine,just behind the engine balancer. It actually has more functions than just timing control but that's it's main job. I'd be suspicious it's the sensor itself as there is a timing wheel with a missing tooth that the sensor uses to calculate rpm and if that wheel was broken or missing an extra tooth(no idea how that could happen) the car wouldn't run at all. Hope this helps.