Serious engine problem, HELP...

[madsedan]

2 weeks ago I was pulling out of a parking space and the car silently died, no jerkiness like I stalled it, it just went dead. It started right up with no problems. As I pulled out of the lot and through an intersection I had extremely bad loss of power, for about a 1/2 second while on the gas at around 2500 rpm. As I drove off it was extremely jerky with sever loss of power for 1/2 second and then everything normal for about 200 ft, then normal until today.
I hadn't driven the car since Friday and I changed the diff fluid this morning, without jacking up the car, and had no problems on my 15 minute test drive afterwards. Drove normal. I went to Taco Bell about 20 minutes ago and about 3 minutes into the drive it started hesitating and jerking, with severe loss of power for 1/2 second and it stalled as I pulled up to the ATM. It started right up and idled normally and drove to Taco Bell and through the drive thru. 2 minutes after leaving Taco Bell it started acting up again and it died 3 times as I was pulling into my driveway.
I have never had a car do this so I have no ideas what to check for, both times I have had this problem now it was with gas from the same place I always buy it, Amoco 92 octane with 4 gallons of 100 octane from the Citgo down the street. 1/2 tank left and the stumbling seems to occur mostly, maybe completely, at around 2500 rpm as I'm accelerating. It has never set off a check engine light.
-bad gas with water in it?
-clogging cats?
-fouling plugs or bad coil?
-fuel pump problem?
Any ideas?

[madsedan]

I just walked in and fixed my problem, for now. The #1 and 6 plug looked OK but 2-5 had allot of oil, so much that a couple of the ones in the middle of the 6 were just drenched. I cleaned the plugs off and let the oil drain into the cylinder and car runs better than it has since I bought it 2 months ago.
I will need to do a valve cover gasket to fix this, right? I have seen write-ups on this and it appeared to be pretty straight forward so I may do it myself.
It was nice to see the tops of the pistons as well, they were pretty and silver with the occasional spot of carbon build up, they looked surprisingly clean for 87k miles and 24k FI miles.

[revo86]

a valve cover gasket is an easy job, if you have the e36 manual it will have the step by step.

also rather than cleaning the plugs i would just go ahead and replace them if you dont know the last time they were replaced. preventative maintenance will help you out in the long run

[madsedan]

Yeah, I am going to replace them when I do the valve cover gasket replacement. I have the Bentley manual, is that the book you are refering to?