The car is a 1994 Accord LX automatic with 230k miles. I've been helping a my friend get his car running well. A quick description of the problem:

Car is hard to start. It will crank and crank and crank, then sputter to life as if it's running on 3 cylinders. You have to gas it to keep it on. It's almost like starting a car with a bad carburetor. Once it starts, it runs PERFECT. SMOOTH like a brand new car. It passed California smog with flying colors. It does this 70% of the time. Sometimes it starts just fine..

What's been replaced:

-All ignition parts(wires, plugs, entire distributor, coil) and timing is spot on
-Seals for the spark plugs(not leaking oil on the spark plugs)
-Fuel pump
-EGR
-Battery+alternator
-Starter

The bad:
The car has been on a bad head gasket for a while now, but it's never affected it besides having to add coolant from time to time.

It had the symptoms for 3 days, then wouldn't start as all. We replaced the fuel pump/w new strainer, and it now starts again, but it still starts rough.

The only things I'm thinking of are:
-Really clogged fuel filter.
-Leaky injector/s
-The headgasket leaking coolant in the cylniders when it's off (but there is no smoke on start up which tells me there's no coolant in the cylinders being burned off)

What do you guys think this could be?

 

sounds like headgasket leaking coolant into the cylinders overnight making it run rough at startup until it burns off

i would compression test it just for the hell of it

 

I was thinking the same thing, but shouldn't there be smoke when I start it if it's burning coolant? There's no smoke on start up.