Running In

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Apr 13, 2005 | 05:49 AM

#31

Asterix

Registered User

Joined: Mar 2005

Posts: 1,685

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From: Dubai, UAE

I went sideway this morning with only 3,000rpm showing and the wife screamed!

Apr 13, 2005 | 07:39 AM

#32

lower

Joined: Mar 2004

Posts: 10,652

Likes: 17

From: Market Harborough, Leics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StuartL,Apr 12 2005, 12:35 PM

Not necessarily. Most manufacturers (can't speak for Honda) put a very thin running-in oil in the engines for delivery. This is so that the thin oil can penetrate everywhere in the engine and get lubricant everywhere it's required. At the first oil change this oil is changed for normal oil, which can then deal with the temperatures and stresses of normal engine use.

If someone can authoritatively confirm that Honda don't ship a car with running-in oil (and I wouldn't trust a dealer to know the answer) then I don't see a problem with pushing the engine from the day you get it. However I'd be very surprised if this was the case as it would make Honda somewhat uniquely confident about the oil penetrating capabilities of normal engine oil.

Honda fills the engines with mineral oil for their first fill. they also put a molydenum aditive in for the running in period. the reason for the mineral oil is that it actually has poorer lubricating qualities than synthetic oil which means that the rings have a chance to bed in properly in the bore and conseqently seal properly. synthetic oil can prevent this by being too good a lubricant and thus preventing the rings from bedding in on the honing in the bore.

the stuff i have read on the net about thrashing the engines from new is pretty unsubstantiated. when my engine was replaced last year i put it under load in the higher gears, but kept the revs under 6000rpm for the first 600 miles. the theory being that i get the benefit of ring sealing from higher cylinder pressures, but don't put high loads on the engine or transmission from high revs.

i don't know if it made any difference or not, but the new engine certainly uses very little oil. i have now done 12k miles since the new engine nad have only had to top it up once in the 7k miles since my last service and then not by very much.

my new engine seemed to have more torque than the last, but was somewhat tight and comparably rough sounding in vtec for the first couple of thousand miles. it did loosen up considerably after a trackday after 9k miles on the new engine.