floor jacks & reawakenings

[davidpertuz at mindspring.com]

Some time recently my floor jack grew legs and walked away (along with my battery tender) when my neighbor accidentally left the garage door open. So I need another one, especially as I am de-hibernating my Fiat next weekend and need to do an oil change. My old floor jack was a kinda-crappy-but-good-enough model that I had for ~15 years, so at least I got my money's worth. 

1)When it comes to less-expensive floor jacks, are there any that particularly stand out over whatever I can find at my local parts stores?

2)Ditto for more hi-po floor jacks (the kind that get your car up in a few pumps), in aluminum - steel ones are monstrously heavy, and the jack sometimes goes along on trips with me so I want something I can actually lift and doesn't take up a ton of trunk space. Not sure I want to spend the $$ for a big Al jack, tho.

Also, this spring/summer I will finally reawaken my SE-R. First job will be the rod bearings. The engine hasn't even spun over in a year and a half, since the car's been sitting in the garage since I moved. Is there any reason to fire it up before I drop the pan? I might have to anyway, just to turn the car around so it's facing out. 

Then, anything else I should make sure to do when I'm doing the bearings? Mostly it occurs to me to try to think of things b/'c the car's been sitting a while. I don't have the hoist, stand or garage space to drop the engine and do it all on a stand (though I'd really prefer to), so it's going to be an in-car job. This means I'm not resealing the front cover or anything like that.

I miss driving my SE-R! 

Feel free to pile on with 'check the archivez!' if the spirit strikes.

David