Cold Start only on second crank

You have described my 1990 TR to a "T" (no pun intended). I have owned mine for 8 years and never thought it to be unusual. Mine has always started cold on the second crank and first crank warm. I actually consider it a good thing as you pre-lube and pressurize all the rod and crank bearings. I don't know for sure but "think" it is normal because it takes a second to pressurize the injectors and get them charging the cylinders. My feeling is, don't worry about it. Just my 2 cents..

 

You just described my 1994 F250 (460 CID) to a “T”.

It needs a bit of foreplay to get things started.

 

so does the starter then stops after those 1-4 seconds or you stop the starter?

 

Are you getting down to below ~68 deg F overnight for many hours? If not, cold starting can be somewhat sluggish as the TTS won't close (so the cold start injectors won't squirt during the first initial starter motor cranking). Would never hurt to unplug a cold start injector, connect a +12V test light between the two terminals in the harness connector, and confirm/deny if it illuminates during the first second or two of the first cold start attempt (it should if the TTS got cold enough for long enough).

Have you inspected the fuel pump connections in the y white connector, or done some modification to ensure that they aren't degraded? During starting, the battery voltage droops down to about 10V so a connection getting flaky may not work; whereas, if the engine actually starts (on one bank), the alternator voltage will increase to about 14V and may make a bad connection (on the other bank) start working.

 

The TTS should close, and the cold start injectors squirt, on the first start attempt after a night in the 50's -- try the test light test after those same conditions to see if you need to dig deeper into the TTS system, or not.

Not a bad thing that the female terminals for the fuel pumps have been replaced, but the male tab can also get badly oxidized -- so wouldn't hurt to "clean" them (with maybe some DeoxIT). Long-term, you'll have the same failure so you'll probably have to do something more significant eventually. Also, have a look at (and keep an eye on) the water fan motor connections in the j connector and the AC system connection in the k connector.

 

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

up to ten seconds starting should never be a problem for the starter

as you write there is a little fuel at the back of the fuel accumulators. so next time before you start the engine try to only switch on the ignition. then the fuel pumps will run a short time. do this 3 times and then start. so you see if the problem is gone or not and can go on further.