Cub Bloke,
A number of years ago, the engine manufacturers, Lycoming in particular, started suggesting sorta strongly that you NOT rotate your engine through a few blades prior to a cold start, or any start, for that matter.
This habit of pulling an engine through prior to start is a leftover from the days that radial engines were the norm. The purpose of this drill was to ensure that no oil had leaked past a ring into a bottom cylinder, which would cause a hydraulic lock (commonly known as a hydraulic). If you had a hydraulic, and punched the starter, the piston would come up on compression, hit the oil in the top (bottom of engine) of the cylinder, and promptly bend a connecting rod. End of flight for the day.
Horizontally opposed engines do not have any risk of hydraulic lock in normal operations, so this practice is irrelevant.
Now, the reason Lycoming suggests you NOT pull your engine through by hand prior to start is that you are simply scraping all the oil off the cylinder walls, cam journals, etc, by rotating the engine by hand. Now you punch the starter and rotate everything some more without any lubrication, before the rotation of the engine finally gets the oil pump working, and oil moving to all parts of the engine. You do far more damage by pulling the engine through by hand than good.
As to rpm after start, Lycoming recommends that you run the engine at approximately 1000 rpm right after start, to get as much oil moving as possible throughout the engine. At lower rpm, the oil pump just isn't moving much oil. Granted, a slightly higher rpm may wear cold steel a bit more, but the oil pump at 1000 rpm will get oil throughout the engine VERY quickly at this rpm, which is the point.
If you are having to use the primer to keep the engine running after start, I would propose that you are starting cold enough that I'd sure recommend some sort of engine pre-heat. At 0 C, a bit of engine pre-heat will do wonders for reducing engine wear.
There was also a great article in the Anchorage paper last week about a fellow who went flying up to Eklutna Lake in a 172, wearing no survival gear and light clothing. He lost it on the strip at the Lake, and woulnd up in the lake, then spent the night and walked 8 miles before gettting picked up.
Moral of that story is this: your survival gear is that which you carry on your person, the stuff in the baggage compartment isn't survival gear, it's camping gear. Sink it in a lake, and you won't get your camping gear out.
MTV
MTV