So I'm at a friends house tonight to run a Simjet 1200AES on a test stand.
This one is about 2 years old with about 20 runs on it.

First off I gotta say I don't like the ECU. It seems really big. Plus maybe Im just not familiar with it but I can't find any way to prime the fuel pump or to motor the engine with the starter?

First start attempt, nada nothing.
Problem traced to glow plug and fixed.

Second start attempt, we get propane ignition but no fuel pumping.
Checked fuel pump, all ok.
Tried again, same thing.

Problem traced to kinked fuel line under the cowl.

4th attempt, lights off on propane, and begins the ramp.
Everything going good and slowly spooling when I notice we are getting a small plume of fire that is gradually increasing.
Pretty soon the plume is getting very large and the tailcone begins to glow red.
I abort the the start and close the fuel valve but now I have a huge fire in the tailcone.
This is when the option to motor the engine would have come in handy.
Finally though the cool down sequence began and blew the fire out before I could grab the extinguisher.

After cool down we made a 5th attempt that ended the same way.

Anyone have any ideas?
There is no way I'm putting this engine in an airframe until I figure this out.

Im inclined to think it may have something to do with the starter motor dragging and not letting the engine spool fast enough?
Just speculating.

No offense to Simjet but man I really would like to dump the electronics and set it up with something like my FTE ECU and start box. Much more compact and user friendly, is this doable?