95 Max this morning had trouble starting. Granted its pretty cold today, but never done this in the past.

Cranked it, seemed to crank normally but maybe a tad slow due to the cold. It fired and died (this happens occasionally).

Cranked it again and there was no "chug chug chug" from compression. It sounded just like a completely smooth whine. (Same sound you get from cranking an engine without any spark plugs in it).

My first thought was the starter wasn't engaging, but it in fact was..the engine was turning over.

I kept trying, eventually I got it to cough. I kept the key held in the weird whiny position for about 20 seconds feathering the gas, then suddenly it caught out of nowhere and ran fine.

When I got to work, I shut it off and restarted it. It sounded like a normal start and caught within 2 seconds.

Is there anything you can think of that would make the engine sound like that...temporarily? I honestly thought the timing chain had gone south, but its running now!!!

 

Funny, this is an issue that happens in the motorcycle world too, specifically the Yamaha FJR1300 which I am a proud owner of. What happens is the initial failure to start causes a cylinder wash down with fuel and the rings suddenly lose the ability to seal correctly resulting in a loss of compression. Happens only on a cold engine. The easy way to get the engine up and running again is to simulate a flooded engine clearing by holding the accelerator pedal to the floor while cranking it. It does take an extended crank to get it to fire, but it does always fire again!

 

You might have cracked fuel injector o-rings that leak a bunch of raw fuel into the cylinder which will causes that type of problem with the engine.