HOW TO BREAK YOUR NEW ENGINE IN CORRECTLEY
Turbo Mini Forums

As the title and is born out of my experience as well

make sure your ignition and fueling is right firstley

heres the link .......... http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

hi,
while it does appeal, it might not fully apply to older nodular cast iron engines like the a series.

For an engine with slippery Nikasil bores it is probably great as it is probably for sleeved blocks in general.

then again loads of US v8 engines are run in this way..

I would opt for a more gentle approach and pay extra attention to getting the bores scrubbed down with ATF then cleaned with break cleaner untill you can get absolutely nothing on a white cloth. a properly clean and honed bore should seat the rings without excessive loading.

but this is a bit of a controversial subject.

cheers

That sir, is not rust, it is the progressive mass reduction system

http://aseriesmodifications.wordpress.com/

its born out of my experience over many years and also .... talking to many peeps in the know!

many oil changes are the key as well

anyone else please
would like to comment ??

i will let you know next week steve - going to try it your way - did it the soft way last time and it did smoke - always do plenty of oil changes, but its being rebuilt starting tomorrow - may well be bringing a cylinder head up for you to work your magic with though

let me know a pleasure! Stefaz

Sorry, this guy 'motoman'doesnt know shit from clay. His theories are flawed and he constainly contradicts himself. More importantly he doesn't take in to account older technology engines like our A series.

I have reconditioned more than 500 A series Engines and I would not recommend what this dick head has to offer.

I do not have much experience with the matter, although I do know that on the Hastings ring's packaging that come with the HYPATEC pistons(form oz) recommend the same method for breaking in that "motoman" suggests.

Greg

** edit, meant hypatec, not hepolite, my mistake

Edited by CR# on 6th Dec, 2009.

i agree with benross fueling and timing is so important. however running the engine in hard surely leaves you open if their are any problems, for example if you pay for the engine to be built then the head gasket goes or valve gets bent, the builder may say 'well its your fault for running in hard. you can't win either way imo

Utter rubbish if applied to car engines! he is talking about bike engines and they are completely different beasties.

A quote from a dealer friend and racer. "You can always tell the bikes that have been run in hard, the engines sound rougher than those ran in the recommended way. They dont last as long before needing remedial work".

Own the day

i've never tryed it this way .. i allways ran in at 500 miles at 3500 then 500 at 5000 then oil change and set up then a steady 100 miles or so gradually building higher in the rev range. worked a treat :)

2012 Avon class c 2nd place 13.8 @98mph

I have a lot more I could add from engine designers and builders including somthing Porsche worked out about car engines but it would bore even me to type it all out.

Dont compare cars to bikes the technology is different.

Here is a thought as to why you should keep the two fields apart. Bikes have been useing sequential gearboxs from the outset or near as, yet they are only seen in race cars or cars from top marques! Why is that

Own the day

as said i've never tryed it this way (as in the link above)

2012 Avon class c 2nd place 13.8 @98mph

I'd be interested to see how different methods actually affect engine performance/life.

When running my current engine in I took it steady for the first 10 miles, then a few runs up to 4000 revs on a little load. after that a few runs up to 4000 on quite a bit of load, then after about 50 miles a good run up to 5000 rpm.

This engine, despite quite large ring gaps due to honing sufficiantly to clean up the bore burns no oil at all and has compression within 3 psi across all cylinders.

I think mabie its good to strike a balance between, a light run in and a heavy run in.

Theres more than one way to do every job - I always try to have some mechanical sympathy (at least until its run in !) but when I worked in a garage in the early 60,s a farmers son had an 850 mini that had been thrashed unmercifully from Day 1, and it was the freest revving and quickest mini 850 we ever saw.

modern pistons and rings ie omegas and accralites have moved on a bit over the years so have CNC boring and honing to 5 microns

each to there own!

This year I rebuilt my engine after line boring and glaze busting with the crank re polished, new pistons and rings.
Went to Avon and run it up the strip with no running in and done my fastest time ever @ 13.2, hadnt even been on the rolling road yet either.

Paul

I seriously doubt it!

Ive rebuilt 2000 race winning engines this year alone, fort he first 50 hrs of running in, i run them at 12000 rpm on cheap recycled filtrate oil . then for the final bedding in a run them at 8 rpm for another 200 hrs,

never had a problem with any of them,
please don't ask me who i build for as i am sworn to secrecy by all my customers,

carl

WWW.FORCE-RACING.CO.UK PLEASE CLICK HERE

There just is no way to compare the two running in proceedures IMO.

Its as much (more actually!) to do with subtle differences in the engine building stage that makes the difference.

I personally am going to be running mine in on the rolling road while its set-up.

Plenty of different load situations to deal with and all of the rev range to go through.

All of this is IMO obviously as i have little experience compared to many/most on here!

EDIT:
Oh and Mr Mowog...if you actually had any sort of decent input you would have explained your point in that post. now you look like a fool! If you build these engines do you use pistons/rings developed way back when the humble a-series was developed? didnt think so.

So dont you think that modern development also finds its way into our engines when we rebuild them? Come on use your nogin!

As for the difference between bike and car engines im not convinced. I thought it was all down to bore/stroke/rod ratios and crank design etc etc, afterall they work in the same way just rev higher....generally.

Edited by James_H on 5th Dec, 2009.

Just a question, here in SA, many small engineering/engine building companys are still using the old rebore method (the machine that looks like a huge ass mill). Are you suggesting to stay away from this? Im not sure if the larger firms here are now using the cnc method though.

cnc is no more than a posh way to charge more for the same job,

carl

WWW.FORCE-RACING.CO.UK PLEASE CLICK HERE

If you 'run in' an A series Engine this way, with off the shelf rings, it won't last. There maybe some special rings and / or honing methods which may tolerate it, but I haven't seen any. Apart from suffering short life, there should be no other problems.

I do have in my hand a ring from just a supposed set up and run in technique. The owner went for less than 2500 km before he could see smoke (note See smoke - so it would have been smoking before that). I would have thought it would have gone longer (usually about 10 000 - 30 000 km).

Yes, this guy is talking about bikes. I don't know about bikes and bike engines so I can comment here. I have been reconditioning A series engines since 1976 so yeah I've been at it a while.

Working on this guy's theory, We need to make HP to run the engines in, yeah? HP comes from the gas presure developed in the cylinder and he says 'run em hard' which means making as high a presure as possible. Well we can have 2 motors running same rings but different build specs. 1 make only 30 HP and the other 100 HP. Working on this guys theory, the 30 HP motor won't run in because it cannot make enough gas presure. Many Dyno operators like to run em hard, just to get a quick seal and stabalise the engine characteristics enough to be able to set the mixture and timing then piss the job off and get paid.

And I quote (motorman);-

"The honed crosshatch pattern in the cylinder bore acts like a file to allow the rings to wear. The rings quickly wear down the "peaks" of this roughness, regardless of how hard the engine is run."

So what is being 'run in' here? The ring or the bore? So if the rings wear down the peaks regardless of how hard we run it, then why run it hard?

and

"If the rings aren't forced against the walls soon enough, they'll use up the roughness before they fully seat. Once that happens there is no solution but to re hone the cylinders, install new rings and start over again."

So how does the 'roughness' get used up? sorry, I find that hilarious

I deal with AE Hepolite and their installation instructions do not say anything of the sort to run in along the lines of what this guy says.

I will post the AE instructions later (I don't have them to hand) however this is what Mahle have to say;-

http://www.mahle.com/C12570B3006C0D49/Curr...776GAB448STULTR

I, along with many other engine reconditioners, would love a ring / bore that doesn't need to be run in or could be run hard to run in, but at least for the A series, they don't seem to exist.

The best way to run in is to 'drive normally' which I guess many of you guys are thinking what is that. Well, moderate load (not light or heavy), keep the revs between 1200 and 3500 RPM and avoid idling. Note that this is to run in rings, cams are a little different.

Certainly for competion use, things are a little different in that the engines are usually re-built after a season (300 - 1500 km), so we are not looking for the same life as a road engine, some oil consumption can be tolerated and we do want a quick seal.

Don't confuse initial starting with running in.

You don't have to take any of my advice, it doesn't bother me, just like to put it out there to help others and keep an open mind.8-)

Edited by mowog on 5th Dec, 2009.