Hard starting?

Good morning,

Having a bad injector would not present much of an issue when starting, it would however cause a miss in the engine at all times while its running. You would surely notice it. And the computers would notice it and throw you codes ranging from a cylinder misfire to emissions-related codes for being too rich.

There are bunch of things that could cause what you are experiencing, for instance, a sensor, pressure regulator, low fuel pressure, fuel leak just to name a few.

That being said, Do you have a check engine light on on at all?

Do you have a way to measure your fuel pressure?

Your vehicle has two fuel pumps on it by the way. There is the one that lives in the tank (referred to as a lift pump) and its job is to pump fuel from the tank up to the other fuel pump called the high-pressure fuel pump (located on the engine) so it can then feed the fuel injectors with the high pressure they need).

Before we get off the rails here though, please let me know if you have a check engine light on.

Jon

Okay. Thanks for that.

When you finally do get the engine to start (cold), if you were to shut it off right away and restart the engine again, does it repeat the long cranking required to start? Or will it start right away? If it does, how long would you say it would have to sit for the engine to have a hard time starting again?

Jon

Okay then,

From what you describe its sounds to me like the fuel system slowly loses its prime when it sits for a while. At first I thought that I might be the check-valve but noticed that you also replaced the fuel pump and the check-valve is part of that assembly.

I would check all of the fuel lines for any leaks.

Regards,
Jon

Even though there is no check engine light lets run the codes for pending codes. It sounds like the fuel rail pressure sensor might be off.

These two guides should help:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/checking-a-service-engine-soon-or-check-engine-light-on-or-flashing

and

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/engine-cranks-excessively-before-starting

Please run down these guides and report back.

Yes, have you run the codes? Let me know.

Okay I was thinking about some of the different failure modes here and and I think I might retract my statement about a bad fuel injector. It is possible that a fuel injector could be prevented from closing fully due to wear or foreign material inside where the pintle is. A fuel injector that does not close fully would allow fuel to seep through into the cylinder while the engine is off.

When you do finally get the car started after those 20 minutes do you notice excessive amounts of black smoke from the exhaust?

I'm with Ken here as well. I'm wondering if there are some DTC codes present here that aren't showing a CEL. I think what we need to do is get a scanner that can run a KOER (Key On Engine Running) self-test. It has been my experience that sometimes codes do not show up during a normal scan. But if a self-test is performed you will get codes you never knew about.

Jon