Hot start issues
 

I have a 2003 E150 5.4 wagon. About 70k miles. If I drive it long enough for it to get fully hot and park it for about 15 minutes to a half hour, it sometimes fails to start. It seems to be a fuel issue as starting fluid sprayed into the intake will allow it to run. After a failure it will start after 5 to 20 minutes of trying every minute or so. Never throws a check engine light. Once running it has no issues. Never stalls, runs strong and smooth. The fuel filter is new. The van is used about twice a week and has sat for as long as a month. Before I replace the fuel pump, are there any other bits that could fail and cause this? Collision sensor? Some other piece of hardware that could overheat and shut down fuel delivery? Thanks in advance,

John

I'm not sure if Fords have this problem or not, but I've heard of other brands having problems with the camshaft position sensor getting hot and behaving that.

Just a thought...

Does it just crank? I think I'd be looking at a fuel pump relay or something electronic, crankshaft and camshaft sensors are common culprits. I doubt if it's the pump since it only does it when it's warm.

Thanks guys. I'll have a look at the sensors. I eliminated the relay early on by moving the relays around. Sorry, should have mentioned that.

Check the pump for volume to... Check it cold, as well as hot.

The only sensor that wouldnt throw a code, is the maf, even if it is bad, it will still read, but wont read accurate...

Are you saying the cam/crank sensors, if they were causing the issue, would throw a CEL?

I've lived through a bad cam sensor that would malfunction when hot (again - not in a Ford), but not throw a code. Not sure why, but it was well documented for that vehicle.

The only real problem with chasing down the sensor issue is that you really don't want to start just throwing money out there on sensors when that may not actually be bad. I isolated the sensor problem by cooling it off and the engine would refire. Not sure if you could try that due to the location of the sensor.

I can unplug the cam position sensor and it will start. No CEL either. Anyone know if there is a collision sensor that cuts off fuel on these things?

It was the fuel pump.