Does the cold weather affect engines?
 

Ever since this winter a lot of people I know have been having engine problems. Shit my ls1 even dropped a valve lol. Does the cold weather have something to do with engine problems?

yes, for sure.

What would cold weather have to do with anything related to the engine operation (besides the tune and it needing more fuel for the denser air)?

Engines run at a controlled temperature regardless of what it's outside, so whether it's 20* in the winter or 90* in the summer the engine will still run around 200*.

Really the only thing that might affect engines in this weather is people starting them up cold and then beating on them before letting the engine warm up a bit.

I would assume it has to do with cold starting and possibly the cold air making oil thicker until it gets up to operating temps. My car is currently in storage for the winter but I know my work truck has 30,000 miles and it ticks slightly during a cold morning start. After about 5 minutes of idle it gets quiet. I am sure that is not very good for the engine as the oil is probably flowing bad until it gets up to temp.

Cold air means increased cylinder airmass (since cold air is denser than warm air)...

this means ignition timing is indexed further along the axis on the timing table where timing would/should be lower...

if timing is high then you can get knock induced which can cause damage to combustion chamber/piston.

But dropped valve would be due to some other problem(s) with the valvetrain.

Hmm, yeah I'm not sure about what happened with the dropped valve. But you guys are saying that if I let my engine warm up FULLY before driving it, I shouldn't have any problems with the pistons?

You shouldn't. You should always let the car warm up before you start beating on it. If you're the type to fire the car up cold and then perform a burnout down the street, you will be going through quite a few engines.

Nope don't drive it like that anyway. Oil changes at 2500 miles with full synthetic 10w-30 and always let the car warm up, I actually never beat on it in the morning.

5 mins in the driveway, then 15 easy mins on the street. Try to keep it under 2500RPM till engine is to temp and it will be good to go. Here, where it gets really cold, its better to watch trans temps and let it come up before you get on it at all. The trans is much slower to reach temp than the engine is when you get into any really cold weather.
If you are in cold weather I would be using 5/30 oil and then in summer use the 10/30 if you like. IMO, use 5/30 year round, and you are wasting your money if you change oil that often. If you are doing changes every 2500 miles, just use a quality conventional oil. If your going to stick with synthetic, go at least 5k miles before changing.

that's what I do ,5k on 5w30 full syn. Valvoline. I also let it warm up along with driving low rpm on my manual trans and don't forget the rear needs warm also. But our cars are built tuff a little babying never hurts ether...

The most ill go is 3000 miles without an oil change lol I like my engine fresh :) but I was looking at getting a gauge pillar and trans temp will definitely be on there

My 9,000 mile L9H 6.2 sounds like a 6.5 turbo diesel when it's below 45 outside if you take off wo letting it warm up. Normal LS piston clatter but dang cold weather really makes it loud.