not the question most of you are expecting

some background>
its a 1991 NA with 89k original miles. GREAT compression.

I yanked the battery friday or saturday to use to to try to fire my S4 TII may have put the terminals in that car wrong like a dumb ****... put it back in the 91 S5, and fired it. cranked for a while SLOWLY then began speeding up and then caught and fired. 2-3 seconds longer then usual. I thought hmmm must have drained the batter messing with the other car. revved it for a bit, letting it pop and stuff, and shut it down. refired it without warming it up and ran fine.

NOW each of the last 4 or 5 mornings when I have got in it to go to work and it cranks super slow 50 rpm then speeding up to normal and firing. this morning it cranked slow for 15 seconds, sped up and fired. so a total of 20 seconds or so of cranking. first car I have EVER had that started slow and sped up its usually the other way around. it does it when I leave work too when its warm outside temps, but not quite as bad... yet....

if its the starter with a S4 TII starter work in it? I have some good spares for that one.....

want to get this fixed in the next day or so before something fails on me at a clients house or something... I am going to take the battery in to get it tested tonight, just looking for other stuff to try at the same time.

anyone have any great ideas?

also, I did put the battery on the charger overnight monday night. no change really.

 

Like you mentioned, have the battery tested. May as well also bring in the starter to have that tested at the same time.

 

Try another battery that is known good. If problem goes away then get a new battery.

 

Rotarys aint fans of the cold hehe..
what temperatures are you guys having up there.?

if cold perhaps the oil is too thick??20w50 is stock

 

the cold affects the battery... make sure if you are not driving it often ( twice a day ) then have it hooked into a trickle charger to keep it topped up.

 

was the battery.... weirdest failure ever... checked its date.... was bought back in EARLY 2002. so 8 years on a 5 year warranty... lucky it made it this far I suppose... fires in a 1/2 second now.