Hard Starting again

["Mark Croft" <mcroft@domain.elided>]

I read the faq's on hard starting, but didn't find anything that quite
fitted my symptons
Here is a summary of the problem:
The car is difficult to start hot or cold
Background:
1. The car is a 1991 12Valve Cloverleaf which has covered 123000 miles and
recently had new head gaskets, cambelts etc.
2. Once running there are no problems. It runs beautifully the full rev
range can be exploited. There are no stall problems and the engine does not
idle erratically.
3. Switch off the engine then start it up again within a couple of minutes,
it starts straight away
4. HT leads are all new along with the cold start sensor. Resistance checks
out at the various temperatures
5. Airflow meter temperature sensor resistor also agreed with another second
hand part
6. Also sure that throttle sensor switches (max/min) are operating correctly
7. Fuel pressure measured and meets the specification
8. New 66ampere hour battery has not made any improvement
9. Improving earth strap between engine and chassis has not improved things
10. Catalytic converter and consequently lambda sensor have been removed. I
understand that this will cause lean running.
11. The difficult starting often results in a cloud of white gas from the
exhaust, (most embarrassing). Obviously one asks that people do not stand at
the back of the car when the starting procedure is underway. I can only
imagine this is unburnt fuel vapour.
12. The previous owner said that the car had starting problems and he had
replaced the distributor etc, but with no success. Incidentally the head
gaskets had failed, so I put some of the problem down to this.

So to my questions:
The fuel pressure drops away slowly over a period of a few minutes when the
engine is switched off. Is this normal?
I have read on the digest that you can get the diagnostic report from the
motronic unit using a button on the steering column or pressing the
accelerator 5 times. I can't find the button and the accelerator won't
produce a sequence of flashes on the dash (the ignition is turned on). Can
anyone give further help?

Best regards
Mark..

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