Long Cranking Time

this post is for my dad. hes owned cjs all his life and finally updated to a 98 tj sport. its a 4.0 with 75k and auto tranny. the problem is that at cold start up it takes a long time to start. clounting the tings, the longest it took was like 25 turn overs. i changed the plugs and wires and that helped the problem a little but it still takes like 10 times to catch and when it does it doesnt seem like it wants to. any help with this? the check engine light is not on. i heard things from the fuel pump check valve to the cps to the iac. any way to narrow it down before throwing a lot of money into this? anyone else had this problem? thanks.
patrick