Hey everyone, it's been a while.

I'm finally nearing the day when my rover rolls again under its own power following a multi-year hiatus which culminated in a nearly complete engine swap.

The newly installed engine is a fresh rebuild and I am wondering about the engine break-in process. I realize many of you will have differing opinions about the process, but I want to hear it all.

Also, in searching other crevices of the Internet, I came across the following page. What are your thoughts?

Break In Secrets--How To Break In New Motorcycle and Car Engines For More Power

Is there any validity to his process or will something explode?

Thanks guys, it's good to be back.

 

Here is what the guys I know at a engine rebuild shop told me, use 5w-30 dino oil, drive it easy.
Change the oil and filter 500 miles later and use whatever oil you want and drive it however you want.
These guys offer a 100,000 mile warranty on all of their engines BUT you MUST change the oil and filter after 500 miles.
With these guys if you dont change the oil in 500 miles it voids the warranty.

 

I am with Spike on this.
Did you use plenty of assembly lube when building the engine? Make sure you prime the oil pump, pull the fuel pump relay and crank the engine for at least 30 seconds before starting and you should be fine.

 

In a lot of vehicle factories they run engines before final install, at various speeds, then the consumer follows the easy driving breakin period. At Mercedes plant, they used to run each engine until 50 gallons of oil had passed thru, part of that was to flush out any trash from the build process. So changing oil and filter early is a good idea. Some vehicle owners manuals used to promote short bursts of acceleration as well, but not extended high speed operation. Kind of hard to avoid higher rpms for dealers in the mountain areas, new car might have to go up some pretty steep hills.

 

Also forgot to mention, don't plan on running synthetic oil for the first 10,000 miles if you replace the rings and or bearings. Also vary your highway speeds up and down by 5 MPH for the first 1000 miles.

 

dont run synthetic and just drive it like you plan on using it.
youve only got a limited amount of time to bed in the rings so dont sit at steady loads for too long... vary your load.

ive broken in all the engines ive built like this with no issues, including turbo engines running boost right after startup.


think about how cars are driven at the factory with fresh motors. they dont get babied.

 

And the bike example has much higher rpm engine