Hi I am new to this forum..hope I'm doing this correct.

I have a 1993 f150 4x4. 5.0l v8 and E4OD auto tranny. 220kmiles

bought from a friend... it was his daily driver. One day he came home. Took a shower. Went to leave and the truck wouldn' start and there it sat for 6months till I came to save it. It has two tanks but only the rear is working. The rear tank,pump,lines,filter are all brand new. You hear the fuel pump pick on for the ~2 s3conds when key is in the on position. It will turn over all day but it doesn' so much as fart,skip,cough, nothing. Doesn' even try to fire. Spray a tiny bit of ether in the throttle body and she fires right up, idles fine and everything. Drove it around and it runs great went down the highway at 80 and it ran fantastic had plenty of power. Now if you shut it off, regardless if how long it runs for, it will not restart or even try just before. The tranny also acts up ( but that' for another thread this is primarily the no start problem).

now I've checked spark. All plugs are brand new and capped properly.. my buddy had a new cap,rotor,wires installed previously before it wouldn't start. Along with a new TPS.
i checked fuel pressure and on crank it has 35psi (which seems within reason. It should be higher but I would imagine the engine would atleast sputter or try to start if the psi was low) I've tried cycling the key many times to prime the fuel system and still nothing. I tried emptying the fuel and running new fuel, nothing. No check engine light was on either.

now I did some forum searching and came up with well maybe it'
The computer.. maybe the computers cranking circuit was bad and the ether tricked it and made it think it was running and it wmswitched to a running circuit and ran good.. And would also explain the tranny iasues. So I bought a new computer. Installed it.. No difference at all. Drove it around town for ~60 miles. No engine light and no changes.

I then checked conpression.. it's a little low (135) but would figure it' still enough to fire. It should run weird or pop and fart on startup if that was the iasue.. I am totally stunped.

it seems as though on crank it' not getting enough fuel. But why if everything is new and rail has decent preasure.. And why would it run flawlessly once it' sprayed.

when it gets up to temp..the motor does idle high. And it seems as though I have a problem with the cooling system. That I have not yet gone through.

I guess my question is has anyone gone through something like this before? And would a problem with the cooling system or tranny cause it to not start on crank but start if sprayed... it seems very odd... I'm leaving towards some sort of sensor or electronic something.... possible ignition switch? Would that be a possibility?

All fuses are good. All relays are good.

I bought a Haynes manual for it but so far it hasn' helped with this issue. Thank you everyone. I' totally stumped.. the engine seems to have everything it needs... yet won' fire when it starts. Saveee meeeeee!

 

I don't know if this is the answer, but it might be worth looking into.
If there is a voltage drop in the ign syst it could be enough to not provide quality spark while the starter is pulling the power from the battery. It would be a good move to check everything from the battery cables to the fuse panels for a poor/corroded connection.Ground connections for the rest of the electrical system could be preventing full power from getting to the rest of the system while the starter is taking some of the power. Once the charging system is providing addl power everything seems fine. Confirm everything is good coming from the ign sw assy when starting.