Okay, '97 non turbo, ~130k miles. Runs fine and starts fine. Moved it one day to wash it and then moved it back (two quick starts and stops). Sat unused for about a week. Went out to go somewhere today, turned the key, it cranked over, started and ran very poorly for about 2 seconds and died. Will not restart and now makes a 'funny' cranking sound.

With what little daylight I had left, I looked around under the hood for any obvious problems. Wasn't long before I found what could be the culprit. The intake hose between airbox and throttle body has two rather large tears it it; large enough for a determined rodent to possible work its way into. Could the throttle body plate have opened far enough during the 2 seconds it ran for anything sizeable to have got past it? Planning on disassembling tomorrow to check (flametrap needs cleaned anyway).

Could the fuel pump/relay gone out instantly?
Could anything relating to the ignition gone out instantly?
I plan on a long day of fooling with it tomorrow, but I wanted to get some ideas on which common areas to start with for a problem such as mine.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jeremy