Engine care when not in use 512BB

I had a major service done on my 512BB engine recently, down as far as cylinder head removal. Everything appears to be in good condition - as I would hope for a car with only 19,000 recorded miles. My concern is that the engine has now been sitting in my garage for a few months waiting for me to get around to putiing it back in. Is there anything I should be doing to keep it in good condition? Does it make sense, for example, to crank the engine a few turns every now and again?

Jeremy,

It certainly wouldn't hurt the engine to squirt some oil down the cyliders and turn her over periodically with the spark plugs out. Personally, after I finished rebuilding my BB engine...and I knew that it would be awhile before I got her back in the car, I used a pressurized pre-oiler to prime the engine with oil. This is a tool that injects oil, under moderate pressure thru the oil sender port into the engine...resulting in oil being distributed throughout all of the oil galleries. Hence, when you first hit the key, there is already oil up in the heads...

Regards,
David

Thanks David. Do you think that turning the engine over on the starter with the plugs removed will get sufficient oil flow for a healthy first start?

Likely, you'd be fine...as long as there was adequate assembly lube put on the cams lobes, journals and buckets during re-assembly.

If you've done, or are going to do an oil change before the engine is started, be sure to pre-fill the oil filters with oil. I find that each filter will take about a pint of oil...

This will ensure that the pump primes very quickly!

Best of luck and enjoy!

David