[Laird Scooby]

The 6-pot lump in the Healey is a very different kettle of fish to the white block 3.0 Garth.

I'm not sure on the white block if there's a way of priming the oil system in advance like you describe, usually the idea is remove the plugs and give it several short bursts on the starter until the oil light goes off. The other thing is i think it has coil pack ignition on the white block, running those (even in short bursts) without plugs could be detrimental to their lifespan.

Thing is, if you've got some sticking tappets, the only way is with a long, hard, fast run with something "extra" in the oil, whether it's HLA treatment or synthetic ATF just to get things started and then regular use throughout the rev range to continue the job.