What glow plugs are u using anyway ? I use several types of plugs with success, Rossi R 8 ( very expensive) , Mccoy MC9 ( slightly less expensive) , K&B hp ( less expensive still) and Fox 2volt ( least expensive of all). The rossi and the fox plug can take a setting of about 50 without blowing, the others need to be set at about 60. The first thing i would do is a glow plug test and set. I do this by removing the plug from the engine and dissconesting the gas solenoid or dont put any powermax in the cylinder. Then you set the glow plug to a setting that you know wont burn out the plug, maybe 55 for the Rossi and fox and 65 or so for the others. Then while holding the plug in your hand hit the start button and watch to see how bright it glows. It needs to be extremly bright but obvously not so bright that it blows the plug. U can experiment with some old cheap or used plugs. Remember the lower the glow plug number the HIGHER the voltage to the plug. Its kind of oppostie of what you might expect. When you have it set to max brightenss or very near max without burning up the plugs reinstall in the engine and try to light the powermax only with the kero turned off or dissconected. You need to find the right "GAS" setting to where it will lite consistantly. I find that 40 to 50 seems to work for most engines. Again, remember this number is also backwards, the smaller the number the greater the powermax. The engine whould be able to reach about 15,000 Rpm give or take, on powermax only. It will sustain this for about 15 to 20 seconds untill it has a motor timeout. There shouldnt be much flame on powermax only. Sometimes i see some but not alot. If you have a lot of flame you probly have to much powermax and need to reduce it ( raise the number by 5 or 10 and retry). Once you ge *** to where it consistanly lites the powermax without flame or destrying your glow plugs your ready to introduce kero. For starters I would suggest a setting of about 85 plus or minus 5. This should give a good "ramp" without flame or with a minimal amount. I hope this helps. One other thing to check is the tightness of all the screws around the tailcone, we found out just today that if all or most of them are loose the engine wont start properly. All my experince is with 3 differnt Ram 500's. I think the ECUs use the same numbers for the different paramaters. I hope this helps. I just rembered one other thing that may help glow plug life. After you pull the element out of the plug put it on a glow driver for a few seconds, supposedly this anneals (spelling ?) the element and makes it less likley to burn out. You can call me at 817 465-6656 if you need more help. By the way, I'd reccomend doing all of the above on a test stand and at home. I'd hate to see you do any damage to your airplane from flames untill you get it sorted out. I do most of my test runs at home on a test stand. I've never had a neigbor complain, I only go to full power for a couple of seconds if I go to full at all. For your purposes you just need to get it to the running idle stage which isn that loud.