Hard to start 2001 4.7 engine

If outside temperature is above 75 degrees, engine will turn over but not crank. Cleaned throttle body, map sensor. Checked cam sensor and replaced engine coolant sensor. When it does start it will sometimes puff out black smoke from tail pipe. Does this sound like ECU problem? This is direction about to go down, plugs wires, fuel rail pressure is good. I know this sounds like a weird issue. Thanks in advance for any advice with this.

 

Black smoke would be fuel? How many miles? how are the injectors?

 

Bad or low batteries can cause some wonky symptoms.

 

The battery is new. Thank you for the welcome! Truck has about 277,000 miles on it now, I got it with 155,000. I had all service done, fluids, timing belt, tune up, rebuilt trans and replaced rear end. I do not think anything has been done to injectors.

 

We had a member with about 160k miles on his 4.7L do a professional test and cleaning of his injectors. 6 out of 8 were dripping out of Spec.

I’ve installed Reman’d 12Port Injectors on mine. Highly recco if thats your problem.

 

When’s the last time the fuel filter was changed?

 

Thanks for the feed back on this issue. Fuel filter is less than 6 months old. We are going to pull the fuel rails and see if the injectors are leaking. Ready to find the cure for this issue, running out of things to check and replace. The truck is sound and runs great except for this issue.

 

Did you check for vacuum leaks everywhere?

 

Recap, new battery, fuel filter, cam shaft sensor, coolant sensor, map & throttle body cleaned, new injectors.....still hard to start when hot outside. Going to replace the coils, to see if that helps. I read the starter relay may cause this problem? About to buy a new truck, dumping money in old truck and not correcting issue. Does anyone have something else to check or change? Thanks for help on this.

 

At this point I would take it to a dealer and let them find the issue. Shouldn’t cost you much if anything at all for them to find the issue. Once you know what the issue is, see if you can fix on your own. Best of luck to to bud. With only 277k miles, feel like your issue should be fixable.

report back so we know what to consider in the future.

 

Turns out the battery was the issue. We finally started testing battery and found it to be the problem. New battery put in and truck starts up like a new truck. Leaving all the parts on as it is running without any issues. Thanks for all who helped with this issue, should be good for another 100k or more.

 

AKA New ‘bad’ battery. Seems common these days.