2008 V70 3.2 - hard cold start

[schnellcgw]

HI, hoping you all can confirm my thoughts on a hard start problem- I haven’t played with returnless fuel system yet and may be missing something.

Have a 2008 V70 3.2 with ~90K miles. Since 50k or so it has hard a fairly regular hard start (cranking 2-5 seconds before it catches), occasionally requiring a second start cycle to get it to start, but always starting. 90% of the time the second start of the day is easier, but never fires up as quick as you’d expect a hot car to on restart (even one that probably needs teeth to pass by a hall pickup to confirm crank/cam position etc).

Finally hooked up the laptop this week and confirmed, not surprisingly, that fuel pressure drops quickly after the car is stopped- generally from 55+/- psi running to 1-3psi 10 seconds after stopping.

Questions:
1) has anyone else ever checked, or could you check, to confirm that this fuel pressure drop rate is unusual / indicative of a failure?
2) Any experience with this failure?

My prime suspects are pressure accumulator/checkvalve (whatever we’re call it these days) or a leaky injector. Leaky injector is easy enough to diagnose (pull injectors, crank, watch for post-crank dribbles), and while I’d prefer to replace an injector to dropping the fuel tank and rooting around in there, I suspect it is the checkvalve because the car does not particularly stumble when starting…

Presuming the worst – any knowledge of replacing the checkvalve? Servicable separately, or am in in this for a fuel pump if it is my root cause?

Many thanks, CW