I'm due to pick my car up this weekend and I was wondering, Whats the best way to run a new engine in ?

I had a quick search but couldn't find anything.

You will get lots of views on this, I'm of the 'break it in easy' type of person.

My main concern would be check your not running rich.

Low boost, low revs, but still a bit of load, in and around town driving.
This is how I done mine anyway.
Oil change at 250, 500-600, 1,000.
Mapped by Flea at 1,500 then oil changed again.

Throughout I was upping the revs and boost, but never went over 4,500-5,000 revs and 0.8-1 bar boost, until mapped.
Been lovely since now done about 7-8,000 miles.

bang on, else bore wash will result in another rebuild required!

and dont forget to keep checking the oil. If there are any iron filings or residue left over, then it will get picked up by the oil and oil filter. Regular oil changes as mentioned above will give nice clean internals.

Cheap Mineral 20/50 oil for the first 20 miles. Get oil pressure before starting and constantly check for any leaks and resolve. Most of the running-in is done within this period. Let the car warm up to operating temperature before you drive it. If you start it drive it for 20 miles don't start it to show your friends for 5 mins then turn it off. Keep rev low no more that 4000rpm but make sure you come on boost to load up the rings no more than 0.8Bar and 1/2 throttle. Just drive normal but make sure you let the engine break (this is just as important) try not to use the foot break only when coming to a complete stop.

Once 20 miles is complete change oil and filter for semi sythenic and drive normal for around 250miles no more than 3/4 throttle.

You can then change to fully after this for a further 250miles gradually increasing rpm and load (proving engine map is ok).

Worth a read and makes sense really. Not what I'd recomend but it does seem right but wrong somehow...
http://mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

Once I have tried this method after engine rebuild,but it wasnt a coupe, it was golf 2.0 16v,we fired the engine and let it work at idle for a half hour and heat up fully,then I went for a drive and trashed it for couple of miles.

After that everything was OK,not a single drop of oil was spent for next 30.000km. Of course I did changed oil after firs couple hundreeds of km and than normal oil changes.

I have sold that engine after 30.000km to a friend who built 2.0 16v G60 and he used only a cylinder block and he was in mint condition

i dont agree

at the top of the compression stroke the rings are forced outwards by the gas, so there is a significant amount of pressure exerted on them by the compressed gasses.

this is clearly demonstrated by the usual cylinder wear patterns which occur only at the top of the cylinder - i.e. when the rings are being pushed outwards and exerting most force against the cylinder walls.

this is why you find a ridge at the top of cylinders where the rings are located.

one of the methods to test pistons for wear is to check the ring side groove clearance, over 0.004" and its scrap as gas blow-by will occur and this will effectively speed up with increase in wear.



i also find it rather odd that the pistons dont have carbon build up on the ringland area, above the top ring, indeed the chamfer on the top corner is also clean which you wouldnt expect.

heres one i prepared earlier....

My old Fiat garage did following - if they got a new car, they did a warm-up at idle and then they changed to a German Autobahn, 100km full speed all the time, when possible.
They stated to me, that these cars ran perfectly afterwards.
I did not do myself, but they also stated that they never had problems with any engine.
Juergen

A guy I know well who builds engines for a small motorsport firm tested out this method of break in period on a ford cvh turbo once. He basicly just held it on full boost from the off on dyno and road for 200 miles. A subsequent compression test showed 30 psi over the average iirc. Indicating that the rings had seated better to the walls.

It depends greatly on the engine, my four stroke mx bike gets 10 mins riding at gentle throttle, a full cool down, warm up again then full on throttle / load. This works well with that type of engine, because it gets ragged within an inch of it's life everytime its used anyway. Not sutible for a modifyed car imo, despite what others do.

With a car engine I'd go with what turboj says, keep the revs low but use the throttle all the time, and let the engine do a good amout of braking. Cheap mineral oil to start, the main thing is to build it up over a short set time period, most of the actual running in is done within the first 100 miles the rest is just a precurser.

Yes forgot to mention, for the first few miles I used a mineral based oil from the same brand.
Fuchs silkolene. Mineral based, then and still now fully synthetic ester based

Millers do a specific running in oil, not sure if it's necacery realy. Maybe a bit of an old boy thing ?

Mmmmmmm, I come from a time when you had to run in an engine. My father had several new cars & a mechanic of high degree who was thought of as an expert told my father, the best way to run in an engine was to drive the car very on off. 30mph for a while, then blasts of 60mph varying the speed all the time for the first 200miles but not too much speed runs. OK this was some time ago & engines have come a long way, but this was the norm back in the days.

Have no personal experience on the subject, never bought a brand new car or had an engine rebuilt

There was a article on "drivers republic", IIRC about the new FocusRS, where Chris Harris spoke to Ford engineer about running-in, and the guy said something like "give it hell, the engine seems to appreciate it later on"!?

The thing that puzzles me is: if manufacturers spend big money on R&D and warranty/aftersales, why isn't the "harsh" running-in a well proven and accepted fact? If it really benefits engine performance AND durability!?

I think that people over complicate running in an engine.

When I ran in my coupe engine:

1. 500 miles on mineral oil - up to 3,000 rpm (base boost)

oil change

2. Fully synthetic - 500 miles up to 3,500 rpm (base boost)

oil change

3. Mapping

Job done - mix of motorway and town driving.

On the car manufacturing assembly line, they test drive every vehicle from 2 to 5 mins with a specific heating cycle then applying the full speed.

I saw engines reach the maximum rpm while still Zero KM .

Maybe this is it...

Race engine.

1. Prime cams with kent cam lube.
2. Fill with tesco value oil
3. Prime oil system with no plugs in.
4. Map watching oil temps.
5. Change to Selenia Racing oil (the best)
6. Result: a cold compression reading that many would be lucky to get when hot.

the car dealers say too run them in hard so when the waranty has expired they will be waiting on you when the car breaks....do what ever you want ..i like to run my engine in slowly..no revs and no max speed runs...someone says that the piston rings need preassure why? they will se pressure after the run in period....runing in a race car engine is a different thing..

thats actually fairly acurate - if its true.

the company i used to work for a few years ago, had as its company cars ford focus's.

2.0 petrol zetec ones, from new i should add.

not being good enough at brown nosing i never had one, but often had to go places during the day and would take whichever was parked closest.

car 1, driven by a 60ish woman from accounts, i'd imagine it had never been past 3k rpm in her hands, felt very tight and strangled (they are not rockets anyway but you know)

car 2, driven by a 35-40 'jack the lad' wannabe, i'd imagine this one spent most of its life bouncing off the limiter, felt ALOT keener to drive, way less strangled anyway.

i dont know.

I'd go for the autobahn method. sounds fun too!

I'm sure it's published somewhere than an engine that's been gently run in will produce less power than one that's been run in aggressively?

I can understand the more aggressive approach to running an engine in, it seems to make more sense, especially with modern tolerances and oils.

All guess work on your part. If sufficient pressures are not met then the rings burnish the bore wall finish this 'smooth' surface does not bed the rings correctly and does not aid oil retention. What you don't want is high bearing loads i.e. low rpm high load like a steep hill at 30mph in 5th. What make you think a race engine is really that different at this stage.

look i would never rev the car max speed on the autobahn with 0km doesnt make sense to me...im not saying that im right ...plus could the rings bed in after some miles??

I know I posted the link about running it in hard but it's only right to tell you what the actual Fiat Coupe Manual says ;-)

Taken from Page 15 which shows the torque curves for the 16vt motor:

"Test Cycles for overhauled engines
During the bench test for the overhauled engines, it is not advisable to let the engines run at full speed but to stick to the figures in the table: Complete the running in of the engines whilst in the actual cars"

"Table:
800-1000rpm for 10 mins with no load
1500rpm for 10 mins with no load
2000rpm for 10 mins with no load"

The above is what Fiat do before running the engine on a test bed at full chat to ascetain max bhp and torque figures for an overhauled engine.

Hope this helps
Paul

fortunatelty for me i am friends with the top ktm tuner/mechanic who runs the uk team at present and have spoken to him (he developed a lot of the powerparts in competition at the highest levelso knows allsorts!) and others about this and they are united in running the engine up to temps for maybe 10 mins or whatever fast idle then letting it run hard under load (not flat out but through the gears taking the revs high) they are of the opinion that for the rings to seal well they need to to be run like this (given some revs under load) while the honing marks are still rough for obvious reasons..if they are gently run they will obviously not bed in as well ..i think we can all understand this.
but..this is on a single cylinder motorcycle engine which was what the guy in the link was talking about as well..
whether its good to run it like that on a 5 cylinder car engine with a turbo boosting and spinning at massive rpm with crap oil i'm not so sure about and then theres the mains etc to think about on a newly built (well i would be thinking about them after it being pointed out that contact maybe possible)
anyway i had been giving this some thought as mines nearly ready to be run in and my plan is... i will be running it up to temps then for those crucial first couple miles taking it easy to make sure its all feeling good then the next 20/30 miles or so i will be accelerating through the gears with some throttle to maybe 4k/4.5 letting it boost (at actuator) and using its engine braking to slow it down ..then i will be doing the first oil change (same crap mineral)then same for the next 400 or so maybe going a bit higher on the revs when i feel it looser then change for the fully and give it a few boots before it goes to be mapped...
its not a easy situation to be in as i have a lot of money in the engine so don't want to harm it but i am wanting to get a good seal..the easiest and safest route would be the slowly gently aproach but understanding the facts are that it will seal better with higher revs and load leads me to want to do it as above..but i have to say the sensible side of me is nagging away in a why take any risk sort of way so my ass will be twitching slightly as i boost my newly built motor ..anyone with any strong views on why i shouldn't try it this way feel free to give me a lesson in run in proceedure

just realised i am doing very much what jason mentioned thats the conclusion i had come to by a different route funnily enough..i have more confidence in it now then..

so taffy what are you going to do about running in after starting this helpful thread?

I'm going down the 'Break it in easy route'. I'll do 250 mile on the oil thats in it, change it for Semi synth and do another 500. Then go for fully synthetic and do another 500 before it goes to Leighton.

Edit:
Considering the car has only done 1900 miles this year it may take a while

after this thread i'm also considering the hard and fast option,
gonna consult leighton first tho....
Don't think i'll be revving to 7200 tho, maybe upto about 6500 tho!
that's if i ever get the car back!

Nick