This seems to be a dead topic with no responses since 5/23/05. However, for anyone in the future looking at this, here's my story.
I have a 93 Altima with 162k miles on it. Three weeks ago I was driving my car and after 45 minutes it started sputtering, jerking, bucking (or whatever you want to call it). My car wouldn't run over 3000 rpm and then it declined over the next couple minutes from there. It then died on me and I had to get it towed to a friend's shop. My electrical was fine and my lights didn't dim. The car just stopped running.
We checked the fuel system and everything was fine. Fuel pump worked, I changed the fuel filter just to be certain, and I had 32 PSI over the fuel rail. Funny thing was that after the car cooled down it would run again for almost 45 minutes exactly (within a minute or two) before sputtering out again.
I took it to my friend who's a professional and initially we replaced the spark plugs, wires, and the cap and rotor on the distributor. Cap and rotor were after market (non-Nissan). Car ran fine for a day and then the next morning stopped again in his parking lot after 47 minutes. Took it back into the shop and found that there was no spark going to the wires from the after market cap and rotor. Only after replacing with GENUINE Nissan parts did we get a spark. Car ran fine for a day and then had same problems. The distributor didn't look too bad initially when we looked at it, but that was the final problem.
However, we put in two aftermarket distributors and each lasted for only a couple days before having the same problems return. The final solution was replacing with a new GENUINE Nissan distributor which means I took it in the ass ($460 US). At least we got credit for all the other crappy distributors.
Some people have luck with replacing the O-ring so I would start with that first. However, be advised that my problem (spark and distributor) were only fixed with Nissan parts. All the other research I've done points to this as well. In total, I've put 80k miles on my car in 5 years. When you add this problem expense in, my total expense over 5 years and 80k miles is $1200. Not bad for a used car. I'm hoping to get a couple more years out of it so it's money well spent...for now.