So I've got an interesting Dilemma, New motor during winter

[drivemusicnow]

Sooo I'm finally getting my car back together ( after almost 2.5 years wOOt) The motor will be done this week, and am going to be picking up the turbo/exhaust mani, wastegate etc in a couple weeks. I'm going to basically be spending every waking moment that isn't devoted to work or family working on the car trying to get it "done" and moving again.

But here's my problem. A) I have a lot to do, and am not sure if I'll be able to finish it before I head back up to Michigan for school (Jan 6th or so) B) I'll have the new 2.3L motor, entirely new fuel, turbo, exhuast, intake, etc systems So tuning it, even with DSMLink is probably going to be somewhat of a PITA. C) I live north of Chicago, so by the time I'm actually going to have the car together and want to start breaking the engine in (ala motoman) It's probably going to be snowing and quite shitty. And even then, I'll only have about a week to be able to drive it before I'm back at school

So my dilemma comes down to, if I do get the car back together, I'll only have a week or so to try and break the engine in, and it's going to be damn cold and crappy. I don't want to just leave the new engine sitting in the car until spring, and I dont' particularly think that doing that would be good for the engine at all. I'm also a bit scared of trying to come up with some good initial settings for the startup and initial break in, as I won't have much time to be able to "tune" it while breaking the motor in.

Like I said before, I go back to school on the 6th or so of January, so either I"m going to have to come back to IL several times over school term (large PITA) or get a friend that I REALLY trust to drive put some good break-in miles on the motor.

I'm about out of ideas on how to make this work well..

 

[Elvenhome21]

why are you so worried to leave it sit with the new motor in it, either don't start it/turn in over and leave it sit till you can finish (leaves the assembly lube where it needs to be) or prime it and start it before you leave and once its running and got good oil pressure then you don't have to worry about it. Worse case scenerio, you try to start it and it don't fire then you leave it sit. Then you could have a problem, lube is gone and no oil film for when you do get it fired.

 

[RoasT BeeF]

Agreed. Letting it sit in the car will do absolutely no harm.

 

[blackGSX2g]

I broke in my motor over the winter, Michigan winters aren't that bad. There are many opportunities for some good break in pulls between blizzards. After your first few pulls, it's pretty much broken in anyways. Just drive it normal after that.

As far as tune goes, when I did my WOT pulls, I just left the standard settings for whatever injectors you have on Link. Then you can tune from there if you desire.

I wouldn't want it to just sit all winter, but to each his own. If you do decide to do this, you MUST make sure that you used a thicker assembly lube on your bearings instead of just regular oil. Also no matter what, make sure you prime the oil pump with a drill before you actually fire the engine. Make sure you see oil coming out of the head (look through the oil cap) before you can consider it properly lubricated for its first rotations.

 

[drivemusicnow]

Sweet. Glad I was making more of an issue out of it than it is. I guess when I see dollar signs instead of an engine, it clouds my ability to see problems

That being said, I'm freaking excited to get this thing back together... Soooooooo much work left, but I actually enjoy it, so it's not too bad.