2.3L ('83-'97) 1997 2.3l hard to start

[DALE MC]

My 1997 ford ranger 2.3l has been completly tuned up. new coil packs, plug wires plugs and new fuel filter. Turns over fine. battery good. timing good ( runs and drives like a brand new truck when it starts). I am thinking either the fuel pump is weak or fuel pressure regulator with starting issue. A mechanic said cracked head or gasket causing plugs to foul out. Just eliminating the easy stuff before replacing gasket or head. No smoke out if tailpipe. Thanks Dale Mc.

 

[scotts90ranger]

One thing that has come up a few times in the last few years is plug wires being in the wrong spot on the coils on one side or another. Both coil packs need to have the paired cylinders oriented correctly, each coil pack is really only two coils, one side is cylinder 1 and 4 and the other side 2 and 3, I don't remember which is left and which is right of the connector... for plug wire routing you can mix up 1 and 4 or 2 and 3 but they can't be paired any other way...

Aside from that my '97 has right around 200k miles and was getting hard to start at times, was flooding out, I put new to me injectors (cleaned and rebuilt from Amazon) and that fixed that and a couple small runability issues... I wouldn't jump to that conclusion though without more troubleshooting, check the coil side plug wire connection first...