Vapor Lock?

Saturday night i was heading out to meet some friends, i get into the truck turn the key and after the initial kickover was a weird noise. Hard to explain but it sounded like a loud whine/whirring.

A similair incident occured with my old 98 Jetta when the battery was low and on its way out, when not enough power was supplied to the system it kind of just whined, i believe it has something to do with not enough power to kick the gear in the engage the flywheel.

So i took the battery first thing this morning into Wal-Mart, they tested it and it was good, which was bad news because that would have been a real quick and easy fix, the kind we all love =P.

After reading as much about the symptoms as i could, i convinced myself the starter is bad, creeping up on 100K miles this is not so far fetched. While not as easy as a battery, if that fixes the issue then i can rule out the flywheel being damaged =/.

First things first, remove the starter...................... Holy Shit.......... Connectors and bolts required some creative hand positioning, but 30 minutes total. REMOVAL of the starter took a little more problem solving, grip endurance, and trial and error than one would expect, after roughly 2 hours of labor i managed to birth a starter out of my driver-side wheel-well.

Take it to an auto store and have them bench test it, guy said it was bad, couldnt even turn it. Bought the new starter with a lifetime warranty and was pleasantly surprised while examining it on the store counter next to the old one that it was a little smaller, right on! So re-install took 20-30 minutes total.

Now considering the noise it was making, the good battery, and bad starter one would think i finally slayed the starting problem........................

Worst sound ever after spending 4+ hours to fix a sound, is having the same sound when you are done =D

After a ton of reading and testing EFI/COR/Fuel pump relays, fuel filters, fuel pumps, and Camshaft Position Sensors i decide to go button up the truck and try again tommorow. Throughout all my reading i barely caught a glance on one of the other forums about two guys in different posts claiming to simply floor the accelerator and crank away until it started and shot out a cloud of smoke, sounded like a loooooooooong shot, but why not.

Well, it worked. Floored, cranked, smoke cloud, normal again. Short story long, neighbor comes out and says "Hmmmm, probably Vapor Lock". Which explains why the starter sounded weird, it more than likely WAS turning the engine over, but with no fuel i guess it was turning with little compression.

Sorry for the long read, but im curious if this has happened to anyone else with our EFI and whatnot, seems like it wasnt too uncommon with older vehicles, but not relatively newer ones. Worst case scenario is this post was far too long but at least i put a few more keywords out there for the next guy whom that tiny little obscure detail might help.

If anyone makes there way through this and has any other things i should check just in case that would be great!