Running In

[mickq]

Go flog it if you want too... I wouldn't...

Just find some nice steep hills, put it in 4th and make it pull it's way up from very low revs... drive it normally, but don't thrsh it.....

always put the car under load, as often as you can..... thrashing isn't putting it under load either....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

WHat you recommend there is MUCH harsher on a new engine than high revs under medium-high loads.

I would strongly recommend you DONT do what you stated. 4th gear up hills at very low revs is exceedingly harsh on your engine, even AFTER its been run in.

I have written a detailed run-in post at this site...I will try and dig it up and post the link here.

[mickq]

Ok, here you go. Put together from 2 separate posts I did in a thread back in April last year:

In general its common sense.

Some rules for early days:

- dont let the engine overheat. Let it idle to cool down if it needs it. Especially if the turbo has been active.

- Do not miss or delay the first oil change. No excuses on this one. It can be like silver glitter in some cars and will do damage quickly if left in. Also the oil tends to be a different grade from the norm, so dont expect it to act like the normal oil.

- No Mobil 1 or similar fully synthetic thin oil until you have done 5000-1000km with normal oil.

Hey for those who really want to do it properly, here is some more detail. But be wary: there is a fine line between doing it properly and not being nice to your car!

You can see how anal the level of detail is below, which is why I didnt write it the first time. But from the number of PM's Ive got, here it is!

I suggest if you really want to do a good job you follow what I have written both here and above very closely. If anyone wants to know the real detail behind it, let me know and when I get time I will write it up.

Follow the same info I wrote above, but add this to it at the start, for the 0-60km mark. Alternatively if you are in doubt, just follow my original instructions and they will tend to work just fine.

You might have seen some people here who wrote "Drive it like you stole it". There is *some* truth to that saying, but its much more limited than they suggest.

The info below is written for the gearing on a Mk1 Manual. If in an Auto you may need to engage the manual gear change feature so you can control the gear its in and how many revs its doing.

For those driving autos, for a Mk1 the rough speeds each gear is used for are:

1st: 0-70kmh

2nd: 30-110kmh

3rd: 50-160kmh

4th: 50-jail

5th: jail - Premier Bracksie's execution chamber

Some background for you: When you buy a new car, or have a reconditioned engine, the cylinders have hone marks bored into them. These are left on purpose, and usually form a crosshatch pattern. They have two purposes:

a) To literally wear down the rings, so the rings and cylinder form a _very_ close seal with the cylinder surface.

b) To help hold some oil, for the short term.

However these hone marks dont last long at all. So you need to change your low km run in procedure to take advantage of them, and reflect the fact they dont last very long.

If you picked up your car and it has 60+km on it, dont stress that much,. Chances are a few test drives happened in your car, and chances are they were not that different from what I suggest below!

What you want to do is this:

All of these steps you want to try to get done by 60km mark or so. After that your hone marks are mostly gone so you cant take advantage of them to closely match your rings and cylinders.

You pick up your car. It has say 20km on the clock (hopefully!).

1) Let it warm up. It also ensures oil is distributed around the engine. Let it idle, maybe after a min or two with you _gently_ running it from 800 revs to 1000 then 2000 revs every now and then. Let it get to full operating temp. (On my T that's a little under halfway on the temp guage). A good way to tell is that the engine cooling fan will probably kick in. It doesnt usually take long to do this in a T as they put out a ton of heat.

2) Start out driving. Go nowhere near freeways. Best place is in the country on some road in the middle of nowhere, but city is cool.

3) Drive for a couple of km's gently, making sure all sounds well and no issues.

4) If all is OK, do a couple of short 2nd gear runs from say 30kmh to 70kmh. Half throttle. Once you get to 70 on each run, back off the throttle completely, and let the car slow down by itself (ie using the engine not the brakes) back to 30kmh. Drive around slowly (normal) for a min or two at city speeds to let the engine cool.

5) Do a few 30-70kmh runs in 2nd gear using 3/4 throttle. Again, be sure to let the car slow down by itself. This is just as important as the acceleration phase as it will help clear excessive oil from the bores and can help prevent glasing of the bores. Drive around slowly (normal) for a min or two at city speeds to let the engine cool.

6) Do a few runs from around 2300 revs to 4800 revs in 3rd gear (may need a freeway to do this....in a controlled off-road environment with a professional driver). Again at 3/4 throttle. Again let the engine slow itself down not using brakes. Watch out for cars behind you! Drive around slowly (normal) for a min or two at city speeds to let the engine cool. (Shouldnt be a problem at freeway speeds).

7) Do a couple of runs as above in 4th gear but start at 2000revs. Dont worry about this step if it means you have to break the law badly! Missing this step wont change things too much.

Back on normal roads, do 3 runs in second gear: 40kmh-60kmh. Full throttle.

If all is well, its time to open it up:

9) 3 x 2nd gear runs from 2000revs to redline. If you can, try to stop the run just before the rev limiter kicks in. Choose 5000 revs if you arent sure when it kicks in. Be sure to let the car slow itself down from each run, not use the brakes. (At the end of a 2nd gear run in the manual you will be doing ~105kmh or so).

By now you are hopefully near the 60km mark and Phase 1 of your breakin is done. The rings will be honed down by the crosshatch marks on your cylinders and will very closely match your cylinders.

If not yet up to 60km on your odo, Id repeat steaps 9 and 10 a couple of times. Once you finish your runs, it is CRITICAL that you let your car cool down well. Drive sedately at 50/60kmh in the proper gear so the engine is relaxed, revving slowly (but not so slowly you are loading the engine up!) and then once you stop, give it 2 mins of idling to let it cool.

Then its on to the steps I wrote in my earlier post for 60-100km, then follow each step for each km step above that.

A few notes for the early stages:

- Be sure to let the engine slow itself down after each run if you can. Dont brake. Its a really important step!

- Be extra sure you warm up the car before you start, and let it cool down well at the end.

Notes for later stages (60-1000km)

- Always let you car warm up and cool down. Cooling down is extra important on very hot days, after very long drives, or after spirited drives where the turbo is likely to have had good use. It only takes either a min or two slow driving at the end, or let the car sit and idle for a min or so before turning it off.

- Do NOT NOT NOT NOT delay your first oil change. Ideally you could even do one at the 60km mark if you follow the steps above as that's when max metal filings will be in your oil. But dont worry too much...you can follow the manufacturers recommendation and stick with 3000km. But dont delay after that. Changing at 3300km is NOT good enough. Get it?!

60-100km:

For the first 100km or so, avoid high revs and avoid loading the engine up.

Id say something like keep it below 3000 revs and dont press the accelerator more than 1/2 way.

Be sure that you dont load the engine. You can put massive load on the engine at 10km by simply putting it in 3rd or 4th and accelerating. The engine isnt made to put out much power at low revs so it struggles. It produces a certain noise when this is occurring. Avoid it.

The reason is simple: dont stress anything out for an hour or two of operation, just in case. Ensure the engine gets to a good operating temp and that oil will be will distributed everywhere. A nice freeway cruise will do this well.

Do NOT hold any certain rev range. If you are doing freeway driving like someone suggested, vary the gear you are in every couple of minutes so that the engine speed doesnt sit at one point too much early on. Use all the gears - gearboxes can do well with running them in too. (Im assuming a manual here).

100-500km:

Raise the upper rev limit slowly. Say to 4500 revs. Still dont use much more than 1/2 throttle. Dont load the engine too much, although some loading is ok. Accelerate between 3000-4500 revs *slowly* the first few times. Not much throttle. After that do it using up to 1/2 throttle.

1000km:

Run the revs up to redline. Initially you should increase the revs in waves, ie do a slow 3000-4000run, then a 3000-4300 run and so on. After a few spurts you will be up high. But in the upper reaches (say above 4000) dont load the engine up too much (ie dont floor it to do those runs...geeeeently!).

1500km, go for it. High revs, high loads.

The tradeoff with engines is simple. As anyone with a lot of racing experience can tell you, if you run it in too hard at the start, the engine's life will not be as long. Its fact. However it will make great power until it starts to prematurely leak oil and show other bad signs. This is only suitable if you are not planning on owning the car long before you sell it off to someone else.

If you run it in too much like a wuss, the car will tend to rev sluggishly and not put out a very high peak power. It will also tend to have resistance moving past the rev range (or two) that they tended to sit at.

What you want is to go somewhere in between. Start off pretty meek and mild. Gradually increase load and peak revs over the first 1000kms. Do not ever load the engine up at low revs, say driving up a hill at 20kmh in 3rd or 4th. It is not good, even with a fully run in engine!

Understand that except for very early on it is LOAD that causes the problems not revs. If you are careful you can rev it to near redline after only a couple of hundred km's (or sooner if you do things really carefully), but you must do so whilst barely pressing the accelerator much. The degree to which you press the accelerator to get to the high revs should be built up over 500-1000km.

I wouldnt engage in "drive it like you stole it" right from the start unless you plan on keeping the car less than 2-3 years.

I have the Expensive Daewoo run in route map somewhere on my PC at home from memory. Its the route they take to run in their new engines, including prototypes and also race engines (put in stock looking cars). I will try to dig it up. Its useful for those who live in Melbourne area as it covers all conditions in all gears and different revs.

And there you have it, how I run my engines in, in excruciating detail! Applies to both cars and motorbikes, except that for motorbikes the revs change (higher as they redline much higher).

[C.S.I]

Convoluted, but sound advice

I ran mine in this way, its running like a kitten, gets about 10l/100km Freeway at 110km/h, sucks heaps more at slower speeds.

Made 195kW on a Dyno Dynamics Dyno Stock with latest Flash.

[harvyk]

Thanks for the advice

I was getting about 10L / 100 KM on the highway on the weekend but around town I am getting about 18L / 100KM. It seems a bit high (but I can have a bit of a lead foot) but after my mate told me about running in rich I was just wondering...

[Turbofalke]

I spoke to my dealer and he said the computer was designed to make the car run rich on run in. Basicly a saftey for the engine, and this mode would last 10 to 15 thousand k's depending on how many cold starts, highway km's etc. I asked because I average around 18l/100km and thought this was a bit steep.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This makes sense, but as has been stated in other threads (I.e. the EDIT threads) the the ECU doesn't have enough memory to record any more than a few starts, so how then could it determine when to run more economically...mmmm. And if you get an edit before the 10-15k mark, would you then be damaging your engine with lean fuel mixture...mmmm.. who knows.

I've got 8000kms on the dial now and fuel economy is still around the 17/18l mark around town. I basically run it in similar to Mickq's instructions, but didn't change to oil until 5k.

[fordboy1981]

The tradeoff with engines is simple. As anyone with a lot of racing experience can tell you, if you run it in too hard at the start, the engine's life will not be as long. Its fact. However it will make great power until it starts to prematurely leak oil and show other bad signs. This is only suitable if you are not planning on owning the car long before you sell it off to someone else.

I change over my cars every 12 months and that's how I run them in..

Dave.

[fordboy1981]

I have the Expensive Daewoo run in route map somewhere on my PC at home from memory. Its the route they take to run in their new engines, including prototypes and also race engines (put in stock looking cars). I will try to dig it up. Its useful for those who live in Melbourne area as it covers all conditions in all gears and different revs.

Oooo, yes please!!

PM them to me if you want.

Dave.

[Bain]

I have the Expensive Daewoo run in route map somewhere on my PC at home from memory. Its the route they take to run in their new engines, including prototypes and also race engines (put in stock looking cars). I will try to dig it up. Its useful for those who live in Melbourne area as it covers all conditions in all gears and different revs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oooo, yes please!!

PM them to me if you want.

Dave.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

PM me too.. ill be having a new car delivered in the next few weeks/months.. (depending how long FORD take)

[maximum_velocity]

I have the Expensive Daewoo run in route map somewhere on my PC at home from memory. Its the route they take to run in their new engines, including prototypes and also race engines (put in stock looking cars). I will try to dig it up. Its useful for those who live in Melbourne area as it covers all conditions in all gears and different revs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oooo, yes please!!

PM them to me if you want.

Dave.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

PM me too.. ill be having a new car delivered in the next few weeks/months.. (depending how long FORD take)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes please I would love one of those routes

[maximum_velocity]

I have the Expensive Daewoo run in route map somewhere on my PC at home from memory. Its the route they take to run in their new engines, including prototypes and also race engines (put in stock looking cars). I will try to dig it up. Its useful for those who live in Melbourne area as it covers all conditions in all gears and different revs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oooo, yes please!!

PM them to me if you want.

Dave.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok I dont know wat happened with my other post so ill try again.

I would love one of those route things please if you can find em