Fuel rail.

Does your one have the interlink that the early ones had? It means that the fuel pump cannot run if there is insufficient oil pressure. Therefore you would have to crank it till the pressure came up before it could run the pump.

No - disconnected when I bought the car at 3 years old. Presumably by the main dealer, as it had a FMDSH. It does have a rather rare factory approved mod to help starting when very hot - to overcome fuel evaporation. A thermostat mounted on the rad closes the fuel cutoff valve and runs the pump at switch on to build up full pressure - as the regulator will be on max. But a better way in those fairly rare conditions is to just run the pump in the way I mentioned to circulate the fuel - this seems to get rid of any pockets of vapour rather more effectively.

Tim Hunkin is a hero of mine, he also stuck a screwdriver through the oil filter on a crossflow in the same program, to demonstrate the oil circulation. He ended up wearing a lot of old oil :)

Squirt some petrol down the intake first, (hot-rod style) that'll confirm if the problem is lack of or too much fuel.

Julian

Here's the first bit of that episode, and links to the rest of it. Looks like it's all on Youtube now. I found his website too, but the download link didn't work.

I've proved it to myself by running the pump before attempting to start.