My 97 has had cold start problems ever since I bought it last summer. I thought they would be easy to fix. HAHA!
Toyota just replaced the engine with a JDM and it still has the problem. It will start, but you need to give it gas to keep it running. If you don't, it dies. Once it runs for 30-60 seconds its fine, and when warm it starts up again fine.
They tried a different, used throttle body, which solved that problem but caused a dangerously high idle. That being an even worse problem, I told them to put the old one back in. They cleaned it all up, again, but the problem remains.
This seems like it would be a cold start injector problem, but my 97 DX did not come with a cold start injector and is not wired for one. I'm stumped. They are stumped. I have an experienced tech working on it and he's stumped, unless we just need to get the right throttle body in there.