In an effort to diminish the energy consumption of the Department of the Navy, strict energy goals have been implemented, to include the use of renewable fuels. Many of the renewable fuels that are currently being evaluated by the Department of the Navy are pure component or only have a few components of hydrocarbons. In order to determine and compare the startup performance of pure component, renewable fuels and conventional Navy fuels, three pure component fuels and standard naval aviation fuel were tested in a single-cylinder diesel engine, varying compression ratio and air-fuel equivalence ratio. It was found that startup performance is improved from any three of the following: decreasing air-fuel equivalence ratio, increasing compression ratio, and finally, increasing cetane number. Additionally, startup performance was affected by the density and bulk modulus of each of the tested fuels.