1) What do you mean by "holding it at 2000 rpm until it smooths out?" I used to do this, thinking it was normal, but my carb was not in the best shape and I found out a whole season later that my head was slightly warped and leaking compression between cyl 2 and 3 (very slightly). The motor would actually shake side-to-side on startup unless I held it to 2000rpm or higher, until it warmed up some and would smooth out below that. In other words, sounds to me like there's an issue.
2) Do you have the green, three-holed accelerator pump actuator on your carb? If so, can you tell us which hole the linkage is connected to? While this *shouldn't* matter for pumping at startup, I'm curious where it's at.
