Everyone just SIMMMA DOWWWN NOWW!!
I think the original poster is actually on the right track.... if you know that you would like to specialize in ortho or endo, you know that research could be a benefit to have when time comes to apply. As an undergrad, I was involved in the highest quality of bench research working along PhD's and grad students from all over the world (we had a very diverse and interesting mix of researchers). One guy was creating a cDNA library for his masters project, another gal was performing in situ hybridization for her post-doc research project, another scientist was working on finding the retonoids that we may be exposed to and have caused severe malfornation in animals, as me, I had my own cell culturing and harvesting to do in order to study regulatory gene expression during development.
My point is that if a 3rd year undergrad student can study complex topics without "being way over his head" then I don't see why anyone who has graduated from college and soon will be enrolled in a doctoral program, can't do research. That is totally absurd. If you know how one commences with research, then you know that READING classical literature about your field of research and learning basic techniques such as pippetting, cell culturing, etc. will be the starting point. I doubt your PI will not want you trained and ready BEFORE starting rearch.
I am sure you all did not mean to discourage the original poster but I can't see any harm in approaching faculty during the summer before your first year and beginning to get the training needed to begin research. ADVICE: if you are truly interested in performing research, then call up your dental school research department (or visit if your near) and ask them about any openings in labs and if they do have openings, then let them know that you will be committed and will begin training this summer for X number of weeks/months. Make sure u read up on the lab before talking to them, as they suredly will ask why you are inquiring about their particular lab and what interests you about that type of research. MOST important is that you assure them that you are totally committed, hard working, and will be more than happy to read up on all the background literatare necessary to fully contribute.
I'm sure if you have the right intentions and determination, you can surely find a nice research position, GOOD LUCK!