I've had this problem for years with my car and have never been able to figure out the problem. When my car sits overnight and I go to go to work in the morning sometimes it will take 5-10 minutes to start, depending on how much of a hurry I'm in it seems. After it sitting at work all day long, untouched, it always starts right up. It's been sitting for 25 hours right now, I just now went out and it started up on the first try. Could this be enviromental with the high humidity South Florida mornings when there's lots of dew on the car, etc? About a year back I installed a Fuel Pressure Gague to try and diagnose the problem. I have it attatched to my fuel rail and I have it sitting at the bottom of my windshield. The fuel pump always delivers adequate pressure when it kicks on, but it does leak down overnight, could it be a problem with fuel leaking into one or some of the cylinders and flooding the engine? My cold start injector is still installed but I don't know what it does exactly, nevermind how to test if it's working or not.


Thanks
Justin

 

Does it not fire at all? Does it chug and stall? When I had leaky injectors, it took 2-3 tries to start, and would chug until it cleaned itself out.

 

I'm not sure what a chug would sound like. It seems like every other time of the day it fires right up as soon as I hit the starter. As for it firing, I believe it is because sometimes when I'm trying to get it started, it tries, and while trying, kicks the starter out.

 

anyone have any other suggestions? is there any way to test the fuel injectors (leaking, spray pattern, not opening) at home?

 

You need to get a fuel pressure tester, which can be found at Autozone, for like $40. It directly screws into the fuel port on your fail rail and all you have to do is start your car and then shut it off. If the psi drops to 0 quickly you have leaky injectors. If not then move on the trouble shooting process.

 

I said in my initial post that I have a fuel pressure gague installed, which I installed over a year ago to try and diagnose this problem. The pressure doesn't drop right away but will drop to zero overnight. What's my next step to figure this out?

 

Mine did the same thing, and it was a non/working cold start injector.

 

If it takes more than a couple of hours than your injectors are fine.

 

sounds like a leaking fpr. The diaphram is letting gas into the intake through the vacuum line.

Run the car. Then pull the vacuum line off the intake manifold and look/smell for gasoline.

 

Very strange. My car fires off instantly after sitting overnight.