I have read the new owner thread and the symptoms and causes thread but what I have doesn't seem to match anything and I have been searching a good bit.

The car is a bit slow to start, after about 3 turns of the engine it starts firing. What I mean by that is it sounds like a 4 cylinder car running on 3 cylinders. If I let go of the key it dies. If I keep going it starts.

This is just happening when the car is cold. When the car is warm it starts immediately.

When it is below freezing outside and the car is cold it also starts immediately.

What is very strange though, 4 times now it has failed to start when hot. Same symptom as above. Turns a bit, starts firing but then stops. What I had to do was just keep trying every 20 sec and eventually every time the car started after a while.


What I have checked
I have brand new (Mazda) coils, plugs & leads. They came from MRP.
Strong battery and I have cleaned the connectors. To properly verify this I have also tried to start with jump leads attached to my truck and that didn't make the situation better.
Coolant levels have not dropped.


The above symptoms are not like any other I have been reading about on this site so I'm not sure. Gut feeling is telling me I'm not getting fuel at start in some cases. But I have no problem when the car is running, it has never stalled or anything.
When it does start it is not more smoky than normal or anything.