Engine Break-In

[Sean]

like I said, just don't stay at the redline for a minute or something. jim said most people who ruin their rings on a new motor try to top it out too soon, which means long periods of high rpms (6,000+) and the new rings don't like it. I've known lots of people who break their engines in by running them hard from the get go.

Yep, and that's definately not the plan! Excellent! :D

[Sean]

I hate to revive this old thread, but I really need to know - I want to change my oil tonight, and I wanted to switch over to 15w-50 Mobil 1 Synthetic. Should I really wait until 10,000 miles - or can I switch over now? I'm at about 1650 miles.

Let me know ASAP!


Also - is my motor considered broken in now? I just drove to Pendleton Oregon and back over the weekend (about 450 miles round trip) - so I did some highway driving. The motor seems to have taken it fine from what I can tell.

[StereoInstaller1]

All of the above depends on the rings!!! High "moly" content rings NEED to see fairly high temps AND high RPM to seat properly.

I took apart a car that belonged to a city patrol. They said they could never get it to stop smoking. They put 10,000 miles on it, all at low RPM, low load.

It was an ex-cop car with a carb'd 350. The state patrol replaced the motor before they sold it to the city.

There was totally fresh hash marks in the cylinders...like fresh from the machine shop. I cleaned the carbon build up out, ran the pistons up and down all 8 using marvel mystery oil and ajax (just pistons and rods here guys, block empty otherwise). After a thorough cleaning, I put it together and broke it in using the "bat out of hell" technique.

The motor (which was in my Astro) ran great, made over 300HP, and is now in my buddies Nova, eating tires and Hondas every day, 25,000 miles later.

High-moly rings need to see high pressure to seat. Full throttle up to redline does it best.

Luke

[PiercedE30]

All of the above depends on the rings!!! High "moly" content rings NEED to see fairly high temps AND high RPM to seat properly.

I took apart a car that belonged to a city patrol. They said they could never get it to stop smoking. They put 10,000 miles on it, all at low RPM, low load.

It was an ex-cop car with a carb'd 350. The state patrol replaced the motor before they sold it to the city.

There was totally fresh hash marks in the cylinders...like fresh from the machine shop. I cleaned the carbon build up out, ran the pistons up and down all 8 using marvel mystery oil and ajax (just pistons and rods here guys, block empty otherwise). After a thorough cleaning, I put it together and broke it in using the "bat out of hell" technique.

The motor (which was in my Astro) ran great, made over 300HP, and is now in my buddies Nova, eating tires and Hondas every day, 25,000 miles later.

High-moly rings need to see high pressure to seat. Full throttle up to redline does it best.

Luke

Thank you for reiterating what I said my buddy did in his ls/vtec.

[Sean]

But...how about the sythetic thing? I wanna know what all of your takes are on that.

[StereoInstaller1]

Have you read this?

http://www.off-road.com/RoverWeb/OilFAQ.html

Luke

[Sean]

Intersting read.

I've been running 10w-40 when breaking in my motor - guess I should be running 10w-30 instead. Didn't think much about it.

I'm thinkin I'll run normal, non-synthetic oil, until around 5,000 miles - just to be safe. Unless there's someone with some proven knowledge that says it'll be safe, I'll just take the extra precaution, and not use sythetic for a while.

[digger]

so what is wrong with fully synthetic when running in?

[nando]

supposedly your rings won't seat properly, although I have broken in an engine with synthetic and I didn't have any problems. who knows if it's true or not? I'll probably switch to synthetic for my next oil change, I'm at around 1,000 miles and the engine was broken in long ago. I broke it in fairly hard, I just avoided long periods of high RPMs..

[Sean]

So - switching to synthetic before my ~1000 mile drive back to school shouldn't be a bad thing - then? :)

[nando]

yeah you will be fine. people have all sorts of strange ideas about new motors. *shrug*

[BahnE30]

why are you guys so hot and horny to dump synthetic in there. unless it's a balls out race motor, i wouldn't waste my money on synthetic, or unless it calls for it, even then i'd be iffy.....

[Sean]

why are you guys so hot and horny to dump synthetic in there. unless it's a balls out race motor, i wouldn't waste my money on synthetic, or unless it calls for it, even then i'd be iffy.....

Why not? To me, it's worth it.

I won't be putting many miles on my car, it'll sit in my college parking lot all year, and I won't be driving it much. I'd rather not have an oil that likes to break down over time and leave shit all over the place. Not to mention I just time tons of time, effort AND money into my motor - why skimp out with non-synthetic oil? Just seems like a waste not to. I personally think synthetic is better in many ways - and running normal oil just doesn't make me as happy as it does knowing that I'm running synthetic.

If you look at the facts, synthetic does lubricate better and last lots longer before breaking down. More miles can be put on it, it can handle wider temperature changes and there's no chance that it will create any build up, because there are zero remains from dinosours in it.

That's just my take. Spending $30 on an oil change is not that much to be. $26 for oil and $4 for a filter. Frankly - it's worth it to me. I like my engine. :)

[PiercedE30]

If your car is going to be sitting a lot like you say then look into getting an accusump setup. Gives you oil pressure before even starting to prevent motor damage.

[Sean]

If your car is going to be sitting a lot like you say then look into getting an accusump setup. Gives you oil pressure before even starting to prevent motor damage.

Probably woulda been easier to put in before I built my engine, right?