[mark houghton]

Originally Posted by FirstDotLast

My understanding is that in that case, the FD is opening very little or not at all yet somehow fuel is getting in to the cylinders. Maybe it's possible the pressure is too high thus causing the arm to not deflect enough and so there's not enough fuel to ignite in the cylinders? This seems unlikely

Seeing as how you've got fuel drooling out of the exhaust, it's not a lack of fuel :-)
Just cranking the engine doesn't create enough air flow as it would with the engine running, so don't expect the metering arm to deflect a whole lot. When cranking it needs to move just enough to trip the safety switch and power up the pumps, just a small amount...a millimeter if even that but I've never watched mine while cranking or running. Once running, if your control pressure is way too low, the arm may deflect way too much. Let's see what your control pressures look like and go from there.