Recently I've been having a problem with hard starting with the D when hot. If the engine is cold it will turn over almost effortlessly. But when hot, it has difficulty starting. If I swap out plugs to force the cold start valve to fire the engine will start, but will immediatly start to flood. I've only had this problem recently start since the weather here hit the 90's. As a quick run thru, the entire fuel system on my car is less then a year old. This includes the accumulator as well. Another odd symptom is an intermidant "ticking" sound from under the intake manifold where the distributor is at. When I first had the car smogged last year, the tech heard the noise and thought it might be a bad spark plug wire causing an arc somewhere. I've since replaced the spark plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor (without removal of the manifold or disconnection of the fuel lines, yes it is possible). Ticking never did go away, but the car ran ok after that. Now that it's hot again, I'm having this problem. The hot start relay will help, but not all the time. If I'm running errands and stop the engine frequently, the engine will flood sometimes with the relay in place. I don't think the impluse coil is causing the issue, because if it was I wouldn't be able to start the car at all w/o jumping the fuel relay. Although I am curious if this is a sign that the coil may be on it's way out. The only remaining components of the ignition system that are original are the inpluse coil, the ballast resistors, and the ignition coil. Since these parts are now 20 years old, I would expect them to need replacing. So I was thinking that perhaps the ignition coil and/or the ballast resistors have become too weak to start the car once they've become hot. (as a side question, is the BOSCH red coil compatable with the DeLorean?). As a side note, my car now runs a bit rougher than it did before. When reving the engine I can see a little black smoke. Of course the LAMBDA light recently came on, so I know that I now have to replace the oxygen sensor. Ideas? -Robert vin 6585