My thoughts are that the internal seals are affected by the cold. Remember when the Shuttle solid rocket booster exploded with the root cause being the o-rings between the sections being adversely affected by the cold temps that morning?
That's a pretty dramatic example and it shouldn't be taken as defacto proof of why I'm thinking what I'm thinking. A fuel pressure gauge connected would go a long ways towards diagnosing this. At key up, the pump should run pressurizing the system and it should hold pressure. You'd want to do that when it's cold.
There is no shame in paying people to do what they do for a living IMO. If you don't have the tools you need, take it in somewhere.
I've been asking around to a few people I know to see about borrowing a gauge. From a quick search, doesn't appear to be that complicated to hook up, read it see what the pressure is and if it holds it.
If it gets too "involved" it would have to go to a mechanic, but with some other expenses that came up figured I'd at least attempt to figure it out. Also don't want to have a shop want me to pay for them to just replace parts until the issue is fixed type of thing.
You have to be careful where you take it for a problem like this however. Not all, but most dealerships are going to check for codes and in their absence just start replacing parts until they get to the problem. If I were the OP, I'd find a local shop that does engine tuning. They will have the proper logging software to see exactly what is going on during startup and will likely be able to point you to the proper component. That also begs the question, is the car running a stock tune or is there a canned aftermarket tune in there. It's not uncommon for canned tunes to cause issues like this.
The car is completely stock, well except for the flowmaster muffler.
your powers of deduction...
are you columbo.
blink twice if yes.
:sneaky:
j/k
does the idle race when you start it?
nvm re-read the op.
what is your intake manifold made out of?
plastic or aluminium?
When the issue happens, it's bogging down almost on the verge of dying and at times it will die. The whole time this is happening there is a very strong gas smell coming from the exhaust. Once it gets past the hard start(s) and bogging down it will eventually idle like normal.
The car is stock, so it's still what it was built with.
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