My 90 Volvo 740 turbo has been parked for a few months since the heat doesn't work. Saturday I decided to dig it out and drive it a bit. The battery was dead so I jumped it and let it run for awhile, drove it to the store and parked it in the driveway.
Sunday I decided to drive it again and it would start after a bit of cranking then die after a few seconds. It didn't make a difference if it was idling or I was revving the engine, it would bog and die after a couple seconds.
Yesterday I figured I would put a bit of gas in it since the gas gauge doesn't work, that didn't help anything. It would try to start but not quite make it. I also heard some popping sounds like it was popping out of the intake. I checked the codes and there were none. Took the timing belt cover off to see if it had jumped time but that looked good. I decided to give it one more try with the hood open to listen better and it started right up and ran fine.
I haven't started it again since but I have no idea what was causing the issue. Any ideas? I'm going to drive it some more this weekend and hopefully don't get stranded somewhere.
I think it's just mad that it sat out in the cold 
IIRC it did something similar to me once and then like you said no codes and it ran fine like nothing strange ever happened. Sorry I'm not much help. 
Yea, I think it just needs some exercise. Maybe it's telling me I need to buy some AT tires for it and go rallycross.
It sounds like it got gummed up by old E10 gas. Next time put some fuel system cleaner and fill the tank at the first chance.
If the maf died it will run like crap and or die after two seconds. Unplug it and see if theres a difference. Also make sure none of the intake hoses are cracked, had the iac hose bust and had a similar issue on mine.
I've had modern vehicles with electronic fuel injection run like crap after jumping a dead battery. Putting in a good battery fixed the problem. YMMV.
Back in the old days, before cars had such fancypants things as electronic ignition, you could jump start it, and it would run just fine. With points and a distributor! That's the way it was, and we liked it!
Get off my lawn!
Sounds like gummed up fuel, like the pump priming at key on is enough to get the engine to start, but then the pump can't maintain pressure and the engine dies. Crappy fuel, dying pump, and clogged fuel filter would all fit the bill. I've seen one car that sat for awhile with an internally collapsed fuel line that caused similar issues as well.
I filled up the tank with fresh fuel and drove it to work today. So far it is running well.
The GS300 did that to me after the battery died. I replaced the battery, and the car started and ran fine. I then parked it and a few days later went to start it. No dice. It cranked and cranked and popped and just wouldn't run. I checked over a few things and everything looked fine. So I cranked it a whole lot more and it finally caught but didn't want to idle. It smoked like a bastard for a while then smoothed out and hasn't given me a lick of trouble since.
The only thing I can think of is the ECU dumped a ton of gas with the calibration wiped and since I only ran it for a bit it wasn't long enough to recalibrate and evaporate the gas. It's been a couple months and it hasn't done anything remotely strange so I'm sticking to that story.
Sounds about like mine, it was smoking quite a bit when it did start. A couple WOT pulls on the way to work seems to have fixed that.
