Larry, your an experienced diesel user and I'm sure that you know pretty much what to do. But treat your stunt plane as a team racer and prerun the motor if you can and have it hot when you get to the line. This necessitated that you have the motor ready to go asap so you don't lose the heat.
I always used a starter on mine to get the motor going initially,do not prime more then one turn through of the prop just to lubricate the motor.If it's a 1/2A then a half flip of the prop, Usually they will go off immediately. God how I hate that stunt image of the one flip start like your manhood is tied up in achieving that idiotic ritual, just to impress the judges.
Your biggest problem is how to control the run. To achieve consistancy I use a cooler and a few ice packs to keep the fuel cool. Do not let your fuel get warm your run time will seriously vary from tank to tank if you do. Do not let your fuel sit in your tank and warm up or you could have an overrun.
In R.C. I had it easy controlling my runs and I always ran my tank out and could guess to within 15 seconds on shutoff.
I love diesel motors but I seriously don't think that if I was going to compete P.A that I'd use one, even though I really like the run that a properly set up diesel will deliver. A consistant speed throught the flight with no speed up on the downhill is really something to behold. Of course the way that my glow's have been running recently in the circle I'm really starting to consider it again. Stinking up my new car is the limiting factor. Yea I know about lamp oil .scent too.
Oh and on another note I have my pre revilite Norvel with a texas timer mount instaled in the Hyper Viper #2, with a Davis head and waiting to fly it.
#1 is flying glow with the same set up, gotta tell you it beats the Cox product motor and is a lot less effort then fitting up a custom Cox. Only needed to space the motor to fit. Dennis