Buddy's Prelude of unknown history takes forever to start...like it's flooded.. or won't start after being parked. once it gets going again, it will start. Checked for fuel, spark, all there, but no start. I gave up and the dealer did a dist. update/recall thing...not sure what parts were new tho...not my car. It ran for awhile after that. Now same thing again. Oil doesn't appear to have water in it. It seems like its flooded or something when turning over forever it will start chugging and start sometimes. He's about to sell it 'cause two shops can't find it, and can't afford anything, he's having some hard luck right now. (Divorce)
Reaching out to the HT community for maximum experiences please. Could it be the injectors leaking? Would the pressure reg. do something like this? ECU?
Thanks for Looking

edit..water


Modified by B and B at 10:23 PM 8/19/2008

 

idk for sure on a prelude, but a lot of starting problems can arise from main relay. it gets hot and contacts separate, and don't work again until its cooled down. Replace it with an OEM part and that usually takes care of that problem.

also, you said there is no oil in the oil.

could also be an ignitor in the distributor going bad, they cause weird problems.

 

if the car sits for more then 1 day will it start like normal ?
you very well be a injector i would hook up a fuel psi gauge and see what it is doing.could be in the pump also if it is loosing fuel pressure from sitting. check the fuel pressure and get back to us .

 

Fuel injector could be leaking into one of the cylinders.

Head gasket could be blown. It doesn't matter if you do not see coolant in the oil.
Let is sit and pull the plugs. See any fluid? On the plug or in the cylinder? If you have one of those yellow radiator fill buckets, you can fill it about half way, pull the connectors to the distributor and crank the engine. If bubbles/fluid is forced through the radiator, into the yellow fill bucket, you have a blown head gasket.