Hope I have this right. If not, someone smarter than me will correct me.
On the pre-common rail engines, the injection timing was determined mechanically by the position of the cam. The common rail engines use a crank position sensor to determine when to fire the injectors, so the crank has to rotate far enough for the sensor to determine the position.
I'm curious, what is considered a long cranking time, time wise? Also, remember that the starter may sound like it's spinning fast, but there's alot of gear reduction and the crankshaft is'nt really rotating as much as the "cranking" sound seems to indicate. My 6. 7 starts quick enough not to consider it an issue, and is comparable to the VP44 5. 9's I've had.
Loren, I haven't noticed any delay in mine, it seems to crank immediately. My 95 used to start in half a revolution, the 08 takes 4.
I have noticed the same, However I have a routeine that I do for starting now, I get in the ruck, put the key in the ignition, turn it to run, Then stop, put my seat belt on, then go back and turn the key to start.
If you watch the engine, what you hear as "revolutions" are usually only a single cylinder going through the compression stroke... .
If you think about it that way, the cranking time seems much shorter.
Merrick