I have the same problem but I still haven't figured it out yet

What I have been doing is just turn the key into the on position for about 3 seconds then crank and she will fire right up

 

My 96 does the same thing. I wasn't sure if it had something to do with the starter I had installed. I'm going try SSteven's method and that will let me know that my fuel is slow to presure up.

 

Try this guys.

pull the vacumn line off the FP regulator
Start the car
look for ANY fuel seeping from the nipple of the FP regulator

If any fuel, your regulator diaphram is leaking.

You may have to let the car run a minute if there is a small leak to finally show up. Basically the fuel bleeds off into the vacumn line. When you go to start it, the fuel needs to finally get to the injectors. My FP showed OK on the gauge because there was enough pressure from the pump. This just caused long crank time.
that was my issue.

good luck

 

Good tip. I have checked mine and it's not leakng and seems to work fine. What puzzles me is that the low pressure is only on first start up of the day. Can't reproduce it until it sits overnight or close to it.

 

CDKDC:

This leak could be VERY slow, thus bleeding of fuel/pressure.

I sure wish I had discovered the real problem before replacing my Opti, coil, ing. module. I had a brand new Aeromotive FP regulator that was bad out of the box. A VERY common problem with their products/ They would not honor a return after 90 days which goes to show how bad the product is. A FP regulator should be a 100k mi item, if not longer.

Not saying your issue is FP regulator but the leak can be very hard to detect from the nipple.

Roger

 

I just installed a warlboro 255 lph pump in the car and it stopped doing it. I guess that slight more fuel velocoty helped it and so far it never happend again. It could also be an older fuel pump getting weak and with slightly lower voltage make pressure but not velocity.