BassLA

A few months ago I was having issues with the car maintaining idle as it would stall immediately after starting, but I removed the idle air control valve and discovered it was really gunked up and not moving freely so I cleaned that and it has been running fine. Just recently I am getting an occasional issue where the car takes a very long time to crank before it will start, but it's not every time. The battery and starter are very healthy so there are no issues there.

I thought it might be an issue with the fuel pump, so I tried waiting a few seconds after turning the ignition for the pump to prime before starting, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Sometimes it fires right up, other times it takes a good 5+ seconds of cranking before it will start. I have noticed that I get an occasional gasoline smell from under the hood. I learned this may be a leaky fuel pressure damper, and when I checked it today it looked dry but there was a residue on it that may have been gasoline at some point. Could this be causing the long cranking issues?

One more thing I'm considering are spark plugs. I bought the car used, and I have a LOT of miles (225K) and its unkown when they were last changed. I plan ro pull a plug or two to check the condition.