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Subject I broke my engine in that way, more/less.
     
Posted by Ash's Z on June 15, 2006 at 2:40 PM
  This message has been viewed 884 times.
     
In Reply To Proper Engine break in - Is this site correct? posted by Mike(Hou)90TT on June 15, 2006 at 06:20 AM
     
Message I have 5000 miles on her now and running strong.

Compression numbers were slightly variant when I first put her together - varying by as much as 8psi. After the first 1000 miles I ran a compression test on her and all of them are at 135psi +/- 1psi. Keep in mind that I have the 500 series camshafts and lower static compression given the combustion chamber work I did. 135psi is right where it should be vs. the 150+ that is typically seen on a rebuild with stock cams, forged pistons, no portwork or CC work.

The only thing that breaks in per se is the rings. All other surfaces are precision machined and they simply start wearing out. If there are any large variances (such as runout, out of round) in the bearing journals, it will simply have accelerated wear and will not "wear in" to prevent further wear.

Getting the rings seated early in the life of an engine is critical to its output potential. It is my opinion that everything just wears out and it is of no detriment to the longevity to perform a loaded-state break-in procedure as outlined in that website. It can be argued that not getting the rings seated as best they can will lead to premature engine failure as blowby will contaminate the oil quicker than if you have very little blowby.

FWIW, I run my intake valvecover PCV pipes open - they are just venting out to the atmosphere. There is very little oil around that area of the engine which tells me that there is very little blowby in the motor.. On top of that, I haven't driven the car gingerly at all since she was first fired up and I am leaving for GAinesville in a few hours and attending a roadcourse event at the GAinesville raceway this weekend. Although I never will say that everything will go perfectly in all cases, I feel quite confident in the reliability of my powerplant to get me there, joy ride in town, race the car at the roadcourse, and get me back without issue.

Here's my latest dynochart:

If something were incorrect with Motoman's break-in process, I would have expected to see either engine failure or a loss of power output by now, but that definately isn't the case.

This is just my $.02 on the procedure. I dont know of anyone on this forum that has attempted it given that if it were bogus it would end up costing them several thousands of dollars to correct. I'm always open for new things and after reading that site and finally getting not only a great explanation to engine break-in, but also a healtly quantity of actual real-world testing done by the author of that site, I really wouldn't do it any other way with my own engines. Sometimes it takes a deal of trust to make a risky change in your normal routine on someone else's suggestion, but this is far from just a suggestion.

Regardless, it is, as was stated, a matter of personal choice.




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