My car is now always hard to start and I am almost certain it is all flooded out, when it starts it sounds like it's running on one cylinder or not all plugs are firing, it will idle between about 200-500 rpms, I have to hold the gas pedal in to rev it up higher and clear it out, then soon after that it will idle and run normal after its cleared out.

The fuel pressure gauge shows the fuel pressure drops down about 2 psi per 1.5 minutes, if I stare at the gauge I can watch it drop down slowly. Shouldn't it hold constant pressure for like 2 hours or so?

So I'm guessing I have a bad injector o-ring, probably just one bad o-ring. I have the stock 850s in the primary rail, and 1600s.

The exhaust does not smell like coolant, and it does not ever smell like gas under the hood or around the injectors, and they all look dry from what I can see with the UIM removed right now.

What do you think, should I pull the injectors and most likely find a bad lower injector o-ring ??

Should I now turn on the key to prime the fuel pump and smell down into the LIM and if there is then a strong gas smell does that mean the injector is leaking gas down into the engine? thanks.

 

How many miles do your injectors have?

 

Not very many, like 2k or less. About two years old

 

I found out it holds fuel pressure like it should, pressure is not lost quickly so the injectors should be fine, and the fuel pressure is good at 36 psi after I turn on the key, and then very slowly loses pressure.

Should I try new plugs?

 

I'm having the EXACT same symptoms since a few starts plus some thick smelly white smoke at start up some times (not every time). But the shitty start as described above with low fuel pressure I experience it every time now that I'm leaving the car for let's say more than a few days w/o starting it.

To have it run normally I have o hold the gas pedal to clean the **** out and there can have some poppings.

I also thought of injector problem, or worse, water seal.

Did you find out finally? Did you fix? Was it fuel system related or coolant?

 

I think it is most likely a water seal. I didn't remove the fuel injectors or anything but I don't think it was a injector seal, but I think it was a water seal. My car starts good now after I put in some Bars leak radiator heavy duty stop leak, and with the idle set a little higher it will start and not have any problems staying running. I've been using the Bars leak for years because I have had bad coolant seals for a long time. It was so bad last year that the gases from the combustion chamber would push so much coolant out of the system into the overflow and then the system got low on coolant and the car would overheat very easily. I fixed that problem when I put in some K&W nanotechnology Head Gasket and block repair, now it still pushes some gases into the coolant and out the overflow but now the car will not lose too much coolant and it will run cool and not ever overheat. I highly suggest you use both these products, as my engine is still alive after at least a couple years of having bad coolant seals. Check your coolant every time you drive it, cause on my car it doesn't suck much or any coolant back into the system after it cools down so it's always a little low and I almost always have to add coolant before I drive it, good thing I just drive it every once in a while. For now you should put in the Bars leak heavy duty stop leak, and it could help as it has many times in my car(I had the same problem a couple years ago and it fixed it then too), and leave it in there, you just add it to the system, it will make your coolant look dirty but that's okay.

 

And my car would put out a ton of white smoke, but after the bars leak it only puts out some white smoke for not long when I first start it cold, and when I start it when it's warm it won't put out any white smoke or just for a second. Recently it was putting out so much white smoke when it was cold or warm, I think the bars leak somehow fixed it.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

Well, I was hoping it would have been the injectors
For the moment I don't have the gases pushing any coolant out, and I'm not over heating (rock solid temp at 85°C) but I guess this will eventually happen then...
****!
I might try the coolant stop stuff (I won't find the same product as you mention here in France) but I fear it would then damage the block preventing it from being rebuilt in medium term, wouldn't it?

 

Don't assume it's a coolant seal. The first thing I would do is change the spark plugs. It could just be carboned up plugs with you running all that fuel. There is no such thing as lean with 850 and 1600 cc injectors is there? How cold of plugs do you use? What AFR do you run at idle and what ECU do you use? Did you tune with a negative lag if you use the PFC and Datalogit? Did you take some fuel out of the Datalogit cranking setting? Changing the Datalogit "IGN vs WaterT cool" 60 degree retard from 15 to 5 should help cold starting as well.