Fuel pump? or what

[brotherhay]

For a few years now, Ive had a problem starting my '80 528i. What happens is it seems to take a while to fire up when turning it over. Each morning, Id say its about 3 seconds before it will fire. My main question is this: Should you hear the fuel pump engage when you turn the key to accessories, or the spot past that, before you actually engage the starter?

If this car follows suit with most all other cars, I would say yes, the gas pump should pressurize the line before the car is actually started. Mine is not doing that...sucks, I think.

Then, as a secondary question that may end up being a separate post in itself. Once the car is started, it dogs way out, and will stall the first few times. Sounds like its flooded, or running on 2 cylinders, or bad injectors, who knows. Hopefully its just the fuel pump causing this issue, and if I can track down my starting issue then this will resolve also. As a note, many parts have been changed in line with this problem. The fuel pressure regulator, cold start valve, even auxillary air valve. As well as all of the hoses/bellows, and cap/rotor/plugs/wires.

[Mike W.]

No, you should not hear the fuel pump run, it is only turned on when either the car is running or the key is turned to start, not acc, not on, but start. There is supposed to be a check valve in the fuel pump to hold pressure, so that could be the problem, but I doubt it.

I would go the other way, wondering if you have leaking injectors and it's being flooded by fuel leaking thru the injectors when it's off. I've seen that more than a few times. Run some techron (techron, not cleaner with techron) thru it and see if it helps any. Or pull the fuel rail out and see if they weep any when you power up the fuel pump.