Just guessing (easy to disprove) that you have something bad in the FI circuitry if the car pretty much always starts with ether but not on its own.

Nice thing about ether is it gets the car running. Bad thing about ether is that it's hiding any symptoms related to a rich or lean condition.

For now, just turn the key to '1' (turns on the radio, etc). Did the fuel pump start buzzing a bit? (It should only run for a minute and then cut out, so "listen fast").

OK, start the car now (key to position '2'). Keep doing your starts that way (listening for the pump first) and see if it fails to hum once and then not start.

Also, listen to see if it starts humming before starting and never stops humming when you don't try to start it.

Lastly, if it doesn't start but you hear that hum, pull a spark plug along with the wire and see if it's wet with fuel.

HTH -CTH

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