Recommendations on how the break-in a new engine

SoCal 370Z

Frost, you know that you just throttled the piss out of yours from inch one!

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frost

I totally did

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370z OG

Mt Tam I am

I religiously followed the manuel pertaining to break in on my new short block. It took me three awful and boring months to do. I started my new oil consumption test 200 miles ago. I am using a quart every 1000 miles currently. I am beginning to think, "drive it like you stole it" is correct break in method.

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Levan

Correct. The rings are sealed within the first 20 miles...the harder you drive the car the better they'll seal. The rough honed engines are a thing of the past and you no longer have to baby an engine when you get a new car.

In fact, vehicles that are babied are noticeably slower and perform worse than cars that are broken in more spiritedly. The reason why the break-in process is still the way it is is because of liability reasons...nothing more.

houkouonchi

I generally kept the rpm under 4k for the first 2k miles except that I completed the break-in period much quicker (2 weeks?). I got an oil change right at 2k and since then have had 2 more and just now (closing in on 14k miles) i am burning oil for the first time. I am only a few hundred miles from my next oil change and my oil level has gradually gone down from about the 80% mark on the dip stick (right after the oil change) to the 60% mark.

I am glad mine is not burning much oil. My dad's 350Z burned oil from the day he got it and his engine died at 120k. My previous car (subaru impreza) burned oil from the day I got it and engine died at 50k miles due to it suddenly burning oil much faster and it burned through all the oil ruining the engine...

ImportConvert

I know it's not a 370Z, but it has similar parts...rings and pistons and all.


My first drive in my Z06, I took it a couple hundred miles running it up to about 3500-4500 in 3rd gear. I let it coast back down. Some stop/go, got on it on the freeway a few times in 3rd and 4th gear (nowhere near redline or anything, just healthy acceleration).

I noted that the tail-pipes had a lot of soot on them, and my oil level was maybe 1/2 quart below the FULL dot.

Since then, I have never noticed any oil usage at all over 1500 miles later it remains DEAD ON, and there is no more soot on the exhaust tips.

Contrary to what people say, the rings DO need seating even by the time you get the car. The LS7 engine is run cold at the factory for several minutes, and this is apparently NOT enough to seat the rings.

Engine break-in takes a few hundred miles initially, and then will get better and better up to 5-15 thousand miles, depending on the vehicle.

The main thing is the break in the gears correctly. This means the differential, transmission, and of course the clutch and brake surfaces. No hard stops, no powershifting, no sustained speeds or loads. Very the load (accel/decel), vary the speed, and heat-cycle the parts (park and go eat lunch). Don't shock the driveline or drop the clutch or slam the brakes.

Modern cars are not ming vases, and I think it would really take an idiot to cause a problem with break-in. This is why it is not tied to your warranty and noone is recording the paramaters the car was driven at for the first few hundred miles. If it was a real issue, the data would be black-box recorded and downloaded at your first service in an effort to deny warranty due to improper break-in.

*Of note, at the BG factory, my car was rolled off the assy-line and taken to over 4,000rpm (not much over) and 80mph on a rolling dynamic alignment machine right in front of me. Then it was taken outside where I did not see and driven on a test-track with lots of bumps, etc. to "find rattles" and fix them before it left the plant, if indeed any existed. I do not know what happened there.

The owner manual for my car is under 55mph and 4K rpm for 500 miles, and no HPDE's until 1500 miles.