Bigpower

as titled, how exactly do i run an engine in properly, am i right in thinking:

500 miles, max 3k revs, no boost,
oil change
another 500miles, half throttle, up to 5k revs, medium boost,
oil change.
another 500miles, can give it some.
oil change
job done

how would you all run an engine in??? is there anything i shouldn't/should be doing???

many thanks..

Jacko

I was told, after running in my engine, that it can be done in a few hours on the dyno. Apparently, by programing the dyno to un/load the engine.

I'd have a word with Gary at APT. It wasn't Gary that told me but it was a DD owner.

My rotary engine was the same method as you described above. Under 3 or 4k for the first 500 miles then under 5k for the next 500.

i think its one of the questions that people will all have different answers.

i was told drive the car off boost or under 3k for 500 miles, then do a oil change and then should be ok.

i heard of people running them in on a track day :?

hummmm.....

ill try ring around a few tuning company's to try find an exact (ish) answer.....

don't get me wrong, i have no problem in doing aload of miles running it in, its just this is my first engine rebuild so id like to get the running in perfect

There are also other schools of thought... apart from the `drive it steady` approach.

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

I posted this up a while ago
http://www.bigpower.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17070

i did mine very similar, several flat out runs with several changes of oil etc, as quoted if you or whoever has built a weak engine it will let go sometime whether it be straight away or many miles down the road

Mad Monk wrote:I posted this up a while ago
http://www.bigpower.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17070

i did mine very similar, several flat out runs with several changes of oil etc, as quoted if you or whoever has built a weak engine it will let go sometime whether it be straight away or many miles down the road

have you still got the car? and hows it running?

HAHA !! Classic !!

This is one of the oldest questions out there that has several schools of thought, several different perpectives to view them from and all of them with enough credible sources to make them all believable.

Lets start with one of the most radical and the prespective behind it.

Bolt it together and fill it with fluids
Start her up and let her idle a bit
Check the fluids once its got to temp
Rev the bollox off it repeatedly max revs, under some light or no load to get the rings humming and really bite in as quick as poss. After say 20 miles you should be sorted !!!

This is usually the approach for race engine builders for race only applications whose primary objective is power - its what they would do to an F1 engine and frankly, you cant get much more exotic and delicate than that !!! The reason is they want to get the components worn as quick as poss to prevent excess friction inside which ultimately means it'll probably wear out in no time as nothings had a proper chance to bed in, but it will develop max power for its relatively short life.

The other classic way is as you say, gentle no heavy load driving, not too low or too high revs, and ensuring you dont labour the engine. The idea here is to allow the components the gentlest break in possible and gradually up the ante in small increments to full revs and load to wear things nicely and ensure long engine life. However if you do this too much then you run a real risk of glazing bores, not getting anything to bite properly and end up with an engine that drinks oil like Olly Reed drank pish and is never gonna win power or longevity awards.

One of the more technically plausible ways I was told relates to what the runnnig in process is actually trying to achieve. Basically you want the rings to dig in to the sides of the bores but without excessive in cylinder pressures. This is usually best acheived by creating a vacuum in the cylinder - ie its best to try and run downhill at medium revs the get the rings to key out and be the bores but its not having to do any real positive load and hence not creating larger throttle openings. Obviously the big drawback to this that hills are only so long and you need to have driven up them in the first place. Which concludes that probably the ul;timate way to be the engine in is light accelerative loads on a dyno to get up to speed followed by engine braking through the gears on the dyno to simmulate a gentle downwards slope.

Of course since the morpheine I could have just typed out a really long way to bake a pancake, but hey at least Im trying !!



J.

I was told by totalseal (whose rings I am using) use propper running in oil then warm it up for 20 miles off boost, limit revs to 4-5k and boost to under 1bar until 300 miles, change the oil and filter, more running in oil and giving it more boost until 500miles, swap the filter and oil for decent full synthetic et voila.

Thing is, it's a balance between what the rings, cams and bearings need - all of which are different