Break In Break in Secrets

[GearNut]

That is an excellent article. I have been breaking in engines this way for years. It is also the way my mentor (RIP) had taught me. It really does make a difference in overall power output and upon future teardown of the engine you can tell a big difference concerning residue buildup on the piston skirts. (The brown stuff most pistons get on the skirts is greatly reduced)

 

[Skyliner70cc]

I break all of my engines this way to include my personal vehicles. A couple of years ago,I compared cylinder compression between my vehicle and a friend's vehicle-we both owned the same vehicle. We had roughly the same mileage (about 48k miles) and I was running about 40psi more cylinder compression. I was pushing about 520psi and he was 480psi average across 4 cylinders. He drove his vehicle gently since it was new and was burning about 1 liter of oil between oil changes (10,000 mile oil chang interval). I burned about 1/4 liter for the same oil change interval using the same oil. When the vehicle got more miles on it, I eventually was pushing close to 550 psi and my friend's TDI never got over 500 psi. I drive all of my vehicle's hard when new, vary the load on engine, vary engine rpm, and NEVER use constant speed or load engine settings for the first 10k miles.

 

[give me vtec]

Sorry guys... Hate to break it to you but, the first couple of people that test drove your car before you probably had more to do with your break in than you did. Most of the break in occurs within the first 50 miles... And is completely done within 500-1000.

 

[Skyliner70cc]

Sorry Vtec, not true in all cases. On my vehicles (all diesels), it took approximately 50k miles for the rings to be fully seated as evidenced by compression values and oil consumption. Once compression peaked in the mid 500 psi values, it held there for over 200k miles then slowly began dropping.

 

[give me vtec]

Sorry Vtec, not true in all cases. On my vehicles (all diesels), it took approximately 50k miles for the rings to be fully seated as evidenced by compression values and oil consumption. Once compression peaked in the mid 500 psi values, it held there for over 200k miles then slowly began dropping.

Lol, Never owned a diesel... Would you be more comfortable if I narrowed the scope of my comment to gasoline engines????

 

[Skyliner70cc]

No, there always seem to be exceptions to the normal rules. I still believe it takes 10k miles for a gas engine to break in but don't have the hard data such as compression values and can only go by oil consumption. Yes, early starts and early use are very important as you say. If you glaze the rings with light usage and not warming up engine and varying load/rpms when an engine is brand new, you are SOL. In the old days, if this happened, a little Bon Ami into the intake would fix this but don't do this on a new engine. This trick was used on older engines with slower piston speeds and I found that it was actually a GM approved method to seat rings/break in engine on their 1955 V8s.

The power and fuel economy increases with a diesel are very noticeable once theyare broken in. As for small engines, it depends on the use of the product on how long it takes to break in. Most of my HT engines are dogs until they get about 7-10 hours of use on them and then they just wake up one day and have tons of power and are easier to start. It took my 3.5kw generator about a week's worth of continus use while camping before it would hold a load above 3k watts without bogging down.

On my 06 VW TDI, I started out at 39mpg and when hit 50k 47mpg was the norm on summer fuel. The mileage differences with a gasser are not as noticeable probably because of the magnitude of new versus broken in compression values.

 

[give me vtec]

No, there always seem to be exceptions to the normal rules. I still believe it takes 10k miles for a gas engine to break in but don't have the hard data such as compression values and can only go by oil consumption. Yes, early starts and early use are very important as you say. If you glaze the rings with light usage and not warming up engine and varying load/rpms when an engine is brand new, you are SOL. In the old days, if this happened, a little Bon Ami into the intake would fix this but don't do this on a new engine. This trick was used on older engines with slower piston speeds and I found that it was actually a GM approved method to seat rings/break in engine on their 1955 V8s.

The power and fuel economy increases with a diesel are very noticeable once theyare broken in. As for small engines, it depends on the use of the product on how long it takes to break in. Most of my HT engines are dogs until they get about 7-10 hours of use on them and then they just wake up one day and have tons of power and are easier to start. It took my 3.5kw generator about a week's worth of continus use while camping before it would hold a load above 3k watts without bogging down.

On my 06 VW TDI, I started out at 39mpg and when hit 50k 47mpg was the norm on summer fuel. The mileage differences with a gasser are not as noticeable probably because of the magnitude of new versus broken in compression values.

Yeah you're probably right... I'm sure the first few hundred thousand times an engine turns over has little to do with the break in. It's the ones that come after those that count... Right?

 

[give me vtec]

Here's my break in... Use regular Dino oil for the first 12k. Vary the throttle only using 3/4 of the rpm range. I usually Drive city for the first couple hundred miles... Then I drive to the beach varying the throttle and rpm the way there. On the way back about half way home I redline it a couple times, holding it a little longer every time. When
I get home I basically consider it broken in. I generally take it easy for the next 5k or so just to let everything else on the car settle in.

Change the tranny/diff fluid using oem fluids, and engine oil using mobil 1... at 12k. Change the oil every 2500 miles.

None of the engines i bought new burn oil.

In all reality though... On a new car it really doesn't make a noticeable difference to the average person. Unless you absolutely abuse your engine right out of the box and never service it... Your engine is most likely going to be just fine regardless of what you do.

 

[Stan4d]

i learned a LOT here, enjoy

http://www.motortuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.html

To conserve space and keep info in one place I merged the thread.

 

[Dave C]

Here's my break in... Use regular Dino oil for the first 12k. Vary the throttle only using 3/4 of the rpm range. I usually Drive city for the first couple hundred miles... Then I drive to the beach varying the throttle and rpm the way there. On the way back about half way home I redline it a couple times, holding it a little longer every time. When
I get home I basically consider it broken in. I generally take it easy for the next 5k or so just to let everything else on the car settle in.

Change the tranny/diff fluid using oem fluids, and engine oil using mobil 1... at 12k. Change the oil every 2500 miles.

None of the engines i bought new burn oil.

In all reality though... On a new car it really doesn't make a noticeable difference to the average person. Unless you absolutely abuse your engine right out of the box and never service it... Your engine is most likely going to be just fine regardless of what you do.

You change an oil made to run for 15,000 miles every 2500 miles? That's 6 times as often as recommended. I ran Mobil 1 in my taxi's, never had an engine failure tied to oil(dumb****s running them after a water pump gives out another story ).