Like 600?? Or more?

 

Check your owner's manual. It tells you this and many other things.

 

Systematic break in is far better than taking it easy for a long period.

THe major concern with breakin now is not bedding cams or any other running gear, but primarily the bearings and mostly ring seal.

Taking it easy with low rpm and no load will not create as good a ring seal as you would get if you applied load to the engine. THe piston rings use combustion presure to push against the cylinder walls. So no load and a low VE burn will result in poor bedding in of rings and wall.

Result, after your 600 odd miles of pitter pottering you'll have a ring seal inferior to that if you did a few WOT burst in the early stages of running. Add to this blowby and increased oil consumption.

I'm not saying rag it, but a good few WOT runs from your first initial drive is sufficient once the engine is up to temp. Its the first 15 mins of running that is responsable fo 95% of the seal efficiency.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BenR
Systematic break in is far better than taking it easy for a long period.

 

By ofcourse, its nothing but opiniated advice, which is always open to criticism.

Sure, in the off chance that something goes wrong, no matter what the run in period and method is, your under warrenty.

My advice is purely based on a peak performance as the goal.

True that since its an owners hard earned money its quite a daunting proposition to go against manufacturer advice, but as with any mass manufactured item, design, build and running is berieved with compramise.

Whenever we build high output engines where performance is the main goal, we always do this method initially onthe dyno (as we can preheat the engine), as any normal idling pretty much wastes valuable ring bedding in time.

75% of max rpm and increasing throttle openings are used with a load applied to the dyno to hold the engine back. At no point have we ever had an engine fail, show signs of damage after the run in strip.

Most people have jsut been conditioned to the traditional methods. Along with the brake bedding in procedude of pootling about for ages, but thats another storey.

My idea would simply be that if i bought an S2000 with the higest output per capcity unit, then i would damn well make sure i'm not giving away power which so easily could be mine. And with the rpm this engine runs, the proportinal losses are even higher.

 

do lots of engine compression braking

rev the engine up to ~5k rpm and completely let go of the gas. let the engine slow down the motor. it helps seat the oil rings.

 

ok thanks guys!

 

Motoman's recommendations work! Give it a good break-in during the first 20 miles, per his recommendations.

You have to drive the car to really break it in. Go through the gears, you don't have to redline it, but be sure to rev it up, go through all six gears, speed up, slow down, etc.

His methods work!