I have a 96-850 that generally runs quite well (during the 3 months we've had it) but recently had a failure to start. This is an isolated event for this car. It cranked well but after something like 60 seconds of cranking refused to run.

A few hours later I was able to try again but this time I stuck a spare spark plug on the coil's primary wire first. That spare plug sees a healthy spark. This woudl seem to rule out Crank Angle Sensor.

I opened up the air cleaner & gave it a big spray of starting fluid (ether). After a couple of tries at this, it fired up & then ran perfectly.

Am I dealing with a fuel pump that looses it's pressure throught the check valve? Just how hard should it be to start a car when this happens?

Why would ether help? Does it have to do with getting it running so the injectors are briefly operating at operational speed & quickly purge out the air in the system?

Thoughts?
Mike