I've been experiencing a somewhat strange issue with my car recently. The car will intermittently take an extra half to an extra full crank to start. The car has brand new plugs in it, properly gapped (BR7ES at .26 gap), I had changed them in hope of the issue lying there, but no resolution from taht. Its also been suggested that I may have an issue with my fuel pump, but the car runs perfectly in regular driving and pulls cleanly to redline. I also investigated the possiblity of a vacuum leak and have reseated the maf pipe/stock airbox numerous times, there is no leak in any of my lines and the car show 20in vacuum at idle as it always did.

This issue also seems to coincide with the heat, and starting the car on inclines, seems more likely to be fueling related then anything else but im not sure how it could be as the car runs perfectly and a wideband shows a correct readout.

Any ideas beyond what ive checked? The possibility of it being a slightly clogged fuel filter, fouled MAF causing erratic initial readings, winter gas possibly still around taking longer to pressurize in the lines... vapor lock... nothing seems to fit 100% and im pretty baffled. Also the issue happens very intermittently, independent of whether its at "cold" startup.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

I had this issue with my old Spec-V. Only that sucker would take up to like 8 seconds of cranking to finally turn over. It never did it when cold. Running errands and all the warm starts is where it kicked in. The issue was in fact the fuel pump. It was not holding pressure in the lines when the car was off. Try this...turn the key to "on" and wait a couple seconds, then crank it over. See if that can replicate the problem. If the problem totally goes away, it was probably the pump as in that couple seconds it's able to pressurize the lines again.

 

My Friends EVO RS does that. Takes the LONGEST to start up dont know why. Doesnt matter if its warm or cold. He has a GT35R Turbo 280 cams and some other stuff.