No I haven't performed a pressure test, tank was almost empty so I dropped it to pull the pump.

A guy I paid to do a motor swap (50k less miles, installed the timing kit I had bought on 'new' motor) drained the fuel tank, I guess he replaced the pump, the tag on it says tested 02/10/17. Found the remains of the original fuel filter in the tank. Once running it runs fine, no hiccups, its just hard to start on occasion. Pump has maybe 1000 miles on it.

Any chance its the fuel injection pressure damper?

 

There's a chance it's an issue with the fuel pressure regulator, but you really should check the fuel rail pressure when it is hard to start to determine the chances of that. If you remove the vacuum line to the regulator and there's fuel in the vacuum line, then that regulator is shot and needs to be replaced. That's assuming a couple of things though - 1) Your truck has a fuel pressure regulator instead of a fuel pressure sensor, and 2) The fuel pressure regulator is vacuum controlled.

I haven't checked the service manual to determine if these assumptions are good or bad ones.

-Rod

 

when it seems hard to start, STOP... turn the key ON, wait 3 seconds, then off, then ON, wait 3 seconds, then crank to start.. The two ON "cycles" will let the fuel pump run to build up pressure.. If it starts right up after that, then YES, you have a pressure problem.

 

The pressure regulator is mounted on the fuel pump module. The fuel injection pressure damper is up on the motor somewhere.

Yes, doing what steve(lll) said worked, that's what we'd been doing.

O'Reillys warrantied the pump and it's fine now. I'm guessing the regulator was bad.