RE: Substitute for Ether
I was reading an old RCM mag from 1983. It was talking about making smoke with diesel fuel. The results were very good and you could tell the fuel was well atomized.
If you install a diesel preheater in the muffler you may be able to get the oil to atomize better. the author used copper tubing inside the muffler or copper tubing wrapped around a brass stinger inline with the muffler. I know that running smoke in a regular glow plane preheating really helps.
Auto Zone sells five foot lengths of copper tube for instrument lines and HVAC supply houses sell cap tube in 6-10' lengths. The tubing comes annealled but can be further softend by heating cherry red and quenching in water.
With a long enough piece of tubing you could get the oil temp pretty high before it gets to the carb.