cranking rpm
 

What's normal cranking rpm?
I'm consistently seeing 175-185 rpm in my logs which seems a bit slow although my battery is supposed to deliver 680A for 5 secs (I have a tiny 17Ah PC680).

That is a little bit on the low side, but should be ok. It's a matter of compression and voltage. You're spinning a 9.5:1 motor with a tiny battery, so it's going to crank slow. As an experiment, you could temporarily hook up a full size battery (even with jumper cables) and see if it spins faster. My car cranks about 100 rpm faster than yours with a "full size" miata battery.

Might also explain why it takes a bit longish to catch. Will try with jumper cables.
So with a healty battery I should see 250+ rpms?

Yes, with more battery you should see more rpm while cranking.

The opposite extreme is a "tight" engine will still turn slowly, but I think you would probably notice a spun bearing... ;)