Cold Start Help - Toyota 3F-E engine+wolf V500 + Eaton M90

Hello crew,

Good to be on board, have been a lurker for a while, haven't found anything quite to answer my question so decided to post, please be nice!

My background is mainly mechanical injection diesel engines but I've decided to get with the current times and work with an ECU.

I have a 1986 Toyota LandCruiser FJ62 with a 3F-E engine out of an 80 series cruiser - 4 litre straight 6, 12 valve, factory EFI engine swapped in - originally this had a carby engine. Also got Bosch 044 pump, 440cc supra injectors (from memory) Eaton M90 off an L67 Commodore and a homebrew intercooler setup. ECU is a wolf V500, ignition is LS coils for each cylinder.

My issue is mainly around starting, especially cold start but hot start isn't great either.

Cold Start generally involves a fair bit of cranking until the engine sounds like it wants to fire, at which point with a bit of throttle she'll try to start, if I open and close the throttle rapidly and repeatedly she'll start. After a few seconds of this, seemingly the ECU will get things figured out and she'll settle into a good cold idle, 1000ish rpm which is the target in the ECU.

If battery voltage is lower than 12ish volts, i.e. been sitting for a few days, this process becomes a lot more drawn out and when she starts there will be a lot of popping etc out the exhaust like there's a build up of fuel somewhere there. Very rarely when trying to do a low voltage start, it'll sound a bit like the starter can't turn over the engine, almost like hydraulic lock due to excess fuel or something.

Hot start, she'll crank and not hit until a couple of stabs of the throttle at which point will start and idle fine at 650ish RPM which is the target.

Air filter is clean, no vacuum leaks that I'm aware of, warm idle is a solid and steady 20 inches of vacuum.

Not massive experience with petrol engines and even less with EFI, so glad of any pointers on what to look at and where to start work for a decent cold start.

Tune is reasonably rich everywhere, but first things first and I want good starting before I start to mess with everywhere else.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Likely needs more fuel to start. When cold you often need 1.5 - 2.5 times the amount of fuel needed when running. Remember on that first revolution crank, the air pressure is ambient, so that also means more fuel.

I suspect your cranking issues are related to higher load from things like the supercharger. Consider wiring the car to use 24v for running the starter. This is often done with high compression motorcycle engines.

If it's kicking back, consider using less advance on the igition timing while starting. Often you only need 4-8 degrees of ignition timing.

If it starts by adding throttle, I'd increase your idle air during cranking to do that for you, and more precisely.