B&S S1227 snow blower 1150 snow series 250cc engine diagnosis

I have a basically new 3yr old snow blower that was given to me by my brother in law. He bought it new 3 yrs ago and said it ran and worked great for about 30 seconds and then seized up. He was told he had to go thru Briggs for engine warranty, he was mad, it was snowing so he threw it in the shed and bought a different one. Now i have it. It wouldn't pull over. I checked the oil, plugged in electric start and tapped it a few times and it started turning over. I removed the carb, disassembled and cleaned it, drained what little gas was in the tank and put in new. Confirmed i had free flowing fuel. Compression tester shows 162. Primer bulb blows air thru carb but doesn't seem to do much. Wouldn't fire. Spray starting fluid in carb it starts right up and sounds good. Don't want to keep using that. Thought i must have missed something in carb so I disassembled it again and soaked it for 30 min in Berryman carb cleaner, checked emulsion jet holes again and blew everything out. Primer still doesn't seem to do much and if I block off the carb with my hand, it'll start and then crack open my fingers slightly it'll start to Rev then die off, cover it tightly again to keep it running and repeat. Where do I go from here? I don't know enough about these but it sounds good while running and I'm hoping it's not junk. Sorry for the long post. Any help would be much appreciated.