I've got a 2001 Intrepid using the 3.2, yeah, lucky me I know. It has been an awesome car for me from 60K to 215K now. I changed the timing belt and water pump both times at 105K and 210K and have loved working on this car.
Anyway, recently, long cranking times of 3-6 seconds seems to be the plague. I checked all the injectors for leaks and found none. IAC is clean, there are no engine codes. I did the fuel pressure bleed down test, and it went from 55 psi down to nothing in about 24 hours. It passed the 5 minute bleed down test the book calls for with no problem. I even removed the fuel pump relay and checked it for resistance on the control coil.
Now that I have hooked up the fuel pressure gage though, the starting issue has completely disappeared. At least for now. Is there such a thing as an intermittent fuel pressure problem in an otherwise mechanically sound vehicle? Battery is good, fuel pressure is good, injectors are good, there are no leaks, no hesitations at full throttle, idle is fine, just a hard start that seems to have cured itself temporarily I'm sure.
Any thoughts on where to proceed in tracking down the real problem? Fuel pumps aren't cheap if that doesn't need replaced yet. I am trying to find what is actually wrong as opposed to shotgunning, which is really easy to do and sort of expensive.
Anyway, recently, long cranking times of 3-6 seconds seems to be the plague. I checked all the injectors for leaks and found none. IAC is clean, there are no engine codes. I did the fuel pressure bleed down test, and it went from 55 psi down to nothing in about 24 hours. It passed the 5 minute bleed down test the book calls for with no problem. I even removed the fuel pump relay and checked it for resistance on the control coil.
Now that I have hooked up the fuel pressure gage though, the starting issue has completely disappeared. At least for now. Is there such a thing as an intermittent fuel pressure problem in an otherwise mechanically sound vehicle? Battery is good, fuel pressure is good, injectors are good, there are no leaks, no hesitations at full throttle, idle is fine, just a hard start that seems to have cured itself temporarily I'm sure.
Any thoughts on where to proceed in tracking down the real problem? Fuel pumps aren't cheap if that doesn't need replaced yet. I am trying to find what is actually wrong as opposed to shotgunning, which is really easy to do and sort of expensive.