Quote:
Originally Posted by JMT
All I can say is my father and brother ordered two identical cars at the same time and they came with consecutive build numbers so one followed the other on the assembly line. My brother drove it like he stole it while my dad followed break in recommendations. Both had 383ci engines and my brother could always walk all over my dads and he had made zero mods. Two years later when I was in college same thing happened again this time with 340's one driven hard from day one and they were like night and day when they ran against each other. No Dyno's for hp proof but it was theroyised that it had to do with how the engine parts took an initial 'set' to each other.
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And this is where the trouble starts.
Two sets of "tests" done without controls, which are perceived as producing a certain effect.
Seating rings is one thing, but anecdotes such as these do not ever take into account that each engine is different from another anyway regardless of sequence number. Owners assume that "identical" cars are truly "identical". When I and 99 other people purchased "identical" 2012 1SS LS3s, each of the cars did not produce exactly 426 bhp and 420 lb/ft at exactly the same rpm. This wasn't true back in the day and it isn't true now. This doesn't even begin to address the rest of the variables such as driver or that a car's ET is more than just the raw performance of the engine. Consider taking the LS3 out of my car and putting it into another "identically equipped" car with the identical break-in procedure. The cars even when driven by the same driver will probably not produce identical ETs.
My own LS3 was broken in close tho the 'factory' method. But I also tempered it with what I know about pushrod V8s. Yes I got more aggressive as the magical mileage number approached. No it didn't think that at that number something changed in the engine, and neither did I never see high rpm during that time.
Having seen the effects of improper cam break-in, I can't ever agree that the 'harder the break-in' is best. It is undoubtedly the case that the "official factory" break in is
very conservative, but at the same time, we can all imagine turning a new engine into a grenade quite easily within 100 miles; I'm sure we all know
just what to do to
really break-in ultra hard; if you can't imagine what to do, you haven't played with enough junk cars! Knowing that, we can reasonably say that both extremes produce mixed results at best.
The "best" method, as is usually the case, is in the wide middle ground that gives maximum positive effect while avoiding negative effect, but I feel it is a gross over-statement and error to use the "hardest is best" mantra. In my opinion that mindset on one hand means that somebody out there can tell the effect he's getting through the loud pedal, and on the other takes for granted that my "hard" break-in is your "hard" break-in, and if we where both "man enough" we could do a "hard break in" like Johnny Lugnuts, whose car beat mine at the drags, since that must be the reason I lost since we both have stock 2012 1SS LS3s.