okay so last night it was raining and i live near an empty lot so i took my car and decided to do some drifts... after about 2 or 3 i noticed my CEL was on. so today i brought my car to autozone to diagnose the CEL. the code that came up was for a crank censor. i went home and a few hours later i turned on my car and the light was off.

1) what is a crank sensor?
2)what would have caused it to turn the CEL on?
3)why would it turn off by itslef

 

The crank sensor is located right behind the pulley on its right side.. check and see if the clip came undone... if that doesnt fix re set batt and see if it comes back on.. if all else fails replace the sensor.. should be an easy fix. p0300 was the code right?

 

Did your car turn off by it's self by chance? If it turned off then you should get a new crank sensor because it isn't reading engine speed properly. Commonly a crank sensor failure will have the car stall out and not start up again unless the connection is good enough for it to read again (intermittent issue). Treat it as a major failure if your vehicle stalls out and has that code!

 

it did stall out.... but does it matter that the CEL turned off ..... and where would i get a new crank sensor?

 

buy it from the dealership.. all the parts are hard to find anywhere else.. or may be finding one from a Wrecked 8 or something

 

Having it clear means that it hasn't had it do it after a few start up cycles. That doesn't mean it wont do it again though. I would get a NEW one from the dealer, don't go cheep when it determines if your car will start or not! Imagine your car stalling in a shady area? The Idle Air Control Valve in my Civic is bad and it stalling out when its cold.....just as bad as the crank sensor but I'm a technician and a little lazy and low on funds to fix the problem .