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One likely possibility for an initial hard start would be one or more leaking injectors. Picture this scenario...You've got an injector that slowly drips gas when the engine is off. If you restart it soon enough, the fuel dripped into the manifold is not significant enough to affect starting. Say you give that leaky injector a day or two to drip fuel into the intake manifold. The accumulated fuel is now enough to flood the engine. You now have to start the engine considerably longer to clear this excess fuel before the engine will run. I wouldn't suggest going out and buying a new set of injectors yet though. You need to confirm that your engine is actually "flooded" when it won't start. I would also double check the fuel pressure regulator to make sure it isn't the culprit. This is a lot easier than checking for leaky injectors. To check the regulator, pull the vacuum line off it with the engine running. If there's no sign of fuel dripping out of the nipple you can assume it's ok. (Anyone care to back me up on this, I havn't inspected my own 97 close enough to confirm the setup and thusly the diagnosis. I assume ours are the same as most) If it checks ok, then I'd be prepared to remove the DI cassette and spark plugs the next time it fails to start promptly. So after a couple days sit, I'd spin the engine over but not enough to actually start it. If it usually starts in 30 seconds, then only spin it 20 seconds. Only you're gonna be able to actually know how much. Now that you've cranked the engine over and had it not start, you need to immediately remove the DI cassete and spark plugs carefully noting whether they come out soaked in gas, just a little wet with gas, or completely dry. Assuming the regulator passed, then soaked plugs will point towards an injector(s) leaking residual fuel pressure into the manifold flooding the engine. If the plugs are wet but not soaked then I'd assume the injectors were spraying ok and the ignition system may be at fault. If the plugs come out completely dry then you may have a fuel pump at fault not supplying fuel (not likely given the nature of the symptoms) or a crakshaft sensor not supplying reference to the computer (again not likely b/c I'd expect a check engine light for this one). Just about anything electronic that could fail and cause a no start condition should throw a check engine light pronto, so I'd assume no electrical/electronic faults until covering all the bases not under the self diagnostics umbrella.
Hopefully this isn't too much to absorb. Keep us posted on your progress and give a holler if ya need some more help.
posted by 170.224.224...
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