Any truth to the break in rumor?

[christianchevell]

Hey the best method is to let Flying Monkeys tinker with the engine before breaking in then rev it as high as you can the first few thousand miles and .........wait for the bearing to spin, the whatever to break and the engine to always have lots of blow by from badly seating rings etc etc all just screwed a little until they help bring the engine to a rotten early end some day.

You want to do things right so consider what I am doing: P.s. I just had a new engine installed cost too much....

I had the engine broke in on dyno with no WOT pulls as its really bad for a new engine, I have to wait a couple thousand miles for final tune and the tune I have now feels spot on after having the throttle in the tune adjusted for the coasting occasionally not having the engine fall flat and stall....

The initial break in was ran 20-30 minutes at varied RPMS according to engine manufacturers and then its shut off and the springs are allowed to cool which is a break in for the springs as they have to have a couple heat and cool cycles......
The engines oil is dumped and a new filter installed before ever driving anywhere but on the dyno. The oil was Driven racing br30 break in oil high ZDDP...perfectly adjusted MPAO etc etc.... Then a second round of br30 goes in for 400 miles, then a round of conventional high ZDDP racing oil in 5w-30 to meet up with the short block makers recommendation to not use synthetic oil for 3500 miles to ensure the pistons rings etc,, seat well and the idea is to keep the engine down in the rpms so my shift light is set at 3500...... SO I have about 2000 more miles to go to dump the oil and use Driven racing ls30, sure my engines modified and demands on its oil are more than a stock engine so I use the right stuff and order it through the local Baxter autoparts store, or would get it off the net if needed.

I do realize the 3500 miles recommended is excessive with a engine break in,just a little in a way because I did not just use any crapola supposedly high ZDDP oil or some crap added zddp to oil as it does not bond with many oils and does not really protect well. I will shortly dump the " best conventional racing high zddp oil" crap conventional oil though as it is a little noisier and I am sure its done its job. My engine does have some when cold if I listen well sewing machine noise that should go away with the ls30 oil, when the engine is warm the engine is quiet.

My last engine I did a double break in with BR30 to ensure its cam got the early critical high ZDDP it needed along with other things considered like the correct this and that as a oil that's too slippery will make the rollers not roll on the cam and then they drag........ a cam to death. A oil with out the right sheer will do that and with not enough slipperiness wear will be higher also..... I made sure to do a break in as I did all old chevy engines only for a ls3 as many over time have came here and complained they ate their cam with lifters or the core yes the core had to be bad.... never mind they ran the almighty DEXOS standard of oil and drag raced it until it had no ZDDP left in it they had the stock mobil one or what ever.... And through the power of their brain knew the cam did not need a break in or at least give it a good start to initially make it broke in.....

I have noticed over time as the gen 5 ages there are less of those posts by far and hope maybe my putting out information may have helped as just what joe blow says is not right, what the industry as a whole begins to steer towards and do is what is right.
Try matching any oil to the endorsers of driven racing oil, which only grow. And yes it would be the guys who made the parts in your engine. Sure occasionally someone somewhere gets a bad core that is not perfect, my last cam was resold after over ten thousand miles looking perfect, it was a comp cam standard core with TSP's highest lift.......
http://www.drivenracingoil.com/news/...tech-bulletin/

Sure I try to cover my bases as I cannot afford to fail. Failure is not a option for many and well for some not so much.......

SO you want to believe the hype from know nothings:

READ the factory freak threads!!!! yes guys who go get a dyno and the read out come in standard not SAE so its artificially inflated purposefully by unscrupulous dyno operators, ( that would be dyno jet as mustangs are SAE), or inflated by someone making their ego purposefully so the customer is happy and they come back.

FACTORY FREAK IS A TERM OF BS IN AND OF ITSELF. Engines will vary slightly, as will dyno conditions and that's what adjusting the standards and using a weather station connected for it and the right altitude etc is supposed to do when used right on a dyno that may or may not be close in readings to dyno x versus dyno y. And then the thing is about.... will the guy try to inflate egos, is it a HAPPY dyno is another terms for dynos that inflate numbers, OR the dyno jet and non load bearing versus the load bearing dyno and how they can be as much as 15% I have read different if really out of whack.....

SO go figure, a guy can abuse his car and say hey..... its better than the un abused one in performance and its totally BS, usually its a case of the other driver will not abuse their car as bad and flog the engine or what ever in a race against the other person....... AS many will say it often comes down to a drivers race : as in every single time........ You stall, bog, slow reaction time, allow too much wheel hop, get sideways, have to brake, etc etc etc and then theres if the cars were tuned exactly and set up exactly the same.... and one is not too rich or too lean or restricted or their lane is crap etc...... To say it all: OPINIONS ARE LIKE ? And a factory freak is a car with Rick James pic airbrushed on the side....... This is my morning RANT...lol, from a old motorhead.

[polizzio]

And not to mention breaking your vehicle per the manufacturer's recommendation does take some personal discipline. Something many lack. Discipline to NOT drive it like you stole it.

New drivetrain components need time to wear in and seat, without generating excessive and damaging localized heat.

But like I said earlier, are you gonna put your faith and trust in somebody raving on the internet without any scientific, tested data.......... or the manufacturer of your vehicle and it's precision engine, tranny, and other components?

[KaBoom1701]

Mild to medium aggressive driving during break in is best. Common sense approach works best. Don't beat the crap out of a brand new motor but don't baby it like it's made of glass either.

Read all the other post if you like.

[CCMADONNA]

i prefer the term, "spirited break in period"

[paul84043]

Originally Posted by OHIOSS

I've heard from a few people that told me the harder you drove your car during the break in period the more HP you will have after it's broke in. Is there any truth to this, or is it simply a rumor?

Umm... No.

I believe the rest of the posts here pretty much beat this one to death..

[JMT]

Seems the consensus is don't baby it. Other than that you have answers that run the full gamet and each has a reason to back it up. One thought to leave you with is if it's going to break you want it to happen under warrantee. Good luck and enjoy!

[MrChrisLS3]

I might add that while many look at break in as an engine thing, it is really a whole car thing. For example, when you replace a clutch, there is break in period of about 300 miles. This involves normal driving, no racing, no burn outs, no dumping the clutch. If you do these things before the clutch sets, it will glaze.

Think about gears, and friction areas. In a new car, new engine, you have freshly cut metal, coming into contact at high stress, high heat. You also have springs that are required to expand and contract at high velocity, and once again high heat. It is very important to run these things through heat cycles before giving them the ultimate stress test.

Point is, it's more than just seating the rings. Even if a hard break in is good for seating the rings, it's still terrible for the rest of the engine as well as the rest of a new car.

Add to this the build quality factor. If there is an issue with a torque spec, or faulty part, finding this out will tend to be more catastrophic at WOT, then conservative driving.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by JMT

Seems the consensus is don't baby it.

Which comes back to Chevy's 4000 rpm recommendation being a reasonable limit for the break-in period. That'll still leave you with more performance capability than you can legitimately use on the street. Chevy doesn't have to warranty away anything you do to it at the dragstrip or wherever.


Norm

[The_Blur]

There is not a correlation between hard driving and post-break-in performance.

[two_wheel_mayhem]

Originally Posted by asher628

This kind of bull shit troubles me because
With this garbage you are able to persuade
The ignorant and sad people will listen to
You Bs. Can we meet in a dark alley

"All you BS belong to us"


What exactly do you want to do to him in the dark alley anyway?

[JMT]

Heat cycling of gears according to GM is supposed to be accomplished in the first 100 miles and consists of 5 cycles to complete the process, after 100 miles the clutch too is ready to go! Now it's time to set those rings ( the most important part)

[jrpimp00]

While visiting the plant in Oshawa, they took the damn car to red line as soon as they put fluids in it. No warm up at all. Wish I still had the vid

[Iron Lung Jimmy]

Originally Posted by asher628

This kind of bull shit troubles me because
With this garbage you are able to persuade
The ignorant and sad people will listen to
You Bs. Can we meet in a dark alley

disjointed and odd
random thoughts almost haiku
your posts make me smile

[FloridaBill]

Since the motorheads are all here in one place.... When would you recommend doing the first oil change? I'm at 1700 miles and I am thinking about having it done at 2000.