wildmanyeah
Crew Member
I thought about that too it seems silly that the consumer has to do it. Perhaps it needs to be broken in under load and that’s hard for the manufacturers to do.
Breaking It In
- Thread starter Stizzla
- Start date
Stizzla
Crew Member
But you have to re-build a race car motor after like three races!
Baxter
Well-Known Member
True, but if you hit a truck and plan on towing there is a break in. When I bought mine they said to wait 1500 Kms before towing. A couple trips to Vic fixed that.
When I bought my truck, the sales “consultant” told me that there was no break-in required before I could tow. “Just hook your trailer up and go down to California!”
I looked at the manual and it clearly states no towing before 1,500Km!
and this guy has apparently been working at the same dealership for 40 years....
So much to trust the sales guys and their knowledge of mechanical matters!
I looked at the manual and it clearly states no towing before 1,500Km!
and this guy has apparently been working at the same dealership for 40 years....
So much to trust the sales guys and their knowledge of mechanical matters!
MikePA
Well-Known Member
Video?!?!
Stizzla
Crew Member
Just some scenery... Nothing too exciting.
Did you follow the book?
Stizzla
Crew Member
To the minute.
Rain City
Crew Member
Are you hitting the books WOT rpm?
Saxe Point
Well-Known Member
I’m not an engineer, but those university degrees are tough to get. And, like it or not, its the science and math that gives birth to the technology. without it, there wouldn’t be anything to wrench. There’s a reason that, in many cases, the law requires engineers to sign off on things.
Stizzla
Crew Member
I believe they say 5800-6200. I could probably have trimmed the motor up a bit and got it to 6000 and maybe squeezed an extra MPH.
Rain City
Crew Member
Nice. Rare to nail it like that.
It's a pretty common boat/motor pair.. hopefully there's not too much variability?
Rain City
Crew Member
Ah I see.
YachtMech
Well-Known Member
Actually, if people read their manuals they would realize that there IS a break in procedure for their cars engines/trans, as well as breaks. for example Toyota states; Avoid sudden stops for the first 300km, do not tow a trailer for the first 800km, do not drive at high speeds/avoid sudden acceleration/do not drive continuously in low gears/do not drive at constant speed for extended periods for 1000km, as you can see this is very similar to marine engine break in procedures.
so really your commenting on the general ignorance of vehicle owners, not the actual procedures set by the manufactures. ALL engines need to be broken in unless they have ben broken in by the manufactures. RACE engines are a completely different story as they are often ran and dyno'ed before getting sent to the customer, going full bore on a fresh race engine would be a recipe for disaster unless you are talking about top tier engines built to the highest tolerances possible, fully blueprinted and balanced to less than .5 grams, and even those engines are pre run and pre wamed before races.
Corey_lax
Crew Member
On my sleds and dirt bikes, I’ve always just started using them the way I am going to use them for the rest of their life. Lots of guys swear by that technique for seating in the rings properly. I’ve never had an issue. The sleds use more oil during their break in cycle which is automated. It reduces the oil consumption after break in and then you get more power. So just pin it all day in the sled world.
on a new outboard, I’d follow the manual because it’s a more expensive toy, and they can pull up your rpm history. I never really have my boat WOT. maybe for a couple minutes racing a buddy but other than that I putt-putt around at 75% throttle to save gas money and not prematurely blow up the motor. It’s safer to blow a dirt bike motor up on land than it is to blow a outboard in the ocean haha.
on a new outboard, I’d follow the manual because it’s a more expensive toy, and they can pull up your rpm history. I never really have my boat WOT. maybe for a couple minutes racing a buddy but other than that I putt-putt around at 75% throttle to save gas money and not prematurely blow up the motor. It’s safer to blow a dirt bike motor up on land than it is to blow a outboard in the ocean haha.
YachtMech
Well-Known Member
@cory_lax, you incidentally brought up a good point to discuss; break in will be different on 2 stroke vs 4 stroke, and diesel vs gasoline (both 4 and 2 stroke diesel, yes there are 2 stroke diesels). And also that the mentality on this is limited to only thinking about the simple things like the rings, what about the cam bearings, cam lobes, timing gears, or belts, in some cases supercharger belts, main bearings, con-rod bearings, wrist pins, end seals, transmission gears, transmission seals, valves, valve guides, valve seats, oil pump gears, etc etc. these are all surfaces that need to be bedded or broken in. In fact if you take a set of bevel gears like in your leg and run them at full speed right out of the box you will see significant wear or damage will occur as the machined surfaces actually need to be given time to polish each other, they will generate heat and shearing moments as they interface, that’s why the first leg oil change always comes out with a significant quantity of metallic particles. This happens with every gear based power transmission system and the size of those particles will be dependant on how the gears were broken in. So the complications from improper machinery break-in often goes unnoticed at first or don’t present in a way you would expect. For example, most oil pumps in engines are either a basic 2 gear system, or cycloidal, both are very easily damaged by metallic particles which is why there is a large particle strainer in the sump, but even small particles wear them down quickly resulting in low oil pressure. here is the catch, you went though break in and everything seems fine, but from the start of the engines life you have reduced the capacity of the oil pump and are feeding your engine less oil than intended for the rest of its life, that’s the start of what separates a 3000hr engine from a 6000hr engine. but few people actually keep a motor for that long, it becomes someone else’s problem.
The issue here really is all the people with anecdotal experience and opinions on this are not going out collecting data, taking apart and testing the machinery to see how much wear occurred under what conditions, and measuring everything to within 0.001 tolerance, and doing this tens of thousands of times over decades.
Even motorcyclist magazine laughably preformed a “test” to disprove this, by taking a pair of used cb300f motors, replacing the top ends only and then broke them in with the standard method vs ride hard and fast. Then measured the compression and leak down, and finally concluded it made no difference. Now I don’t have time in the day to break down how ineffectively their “scientific method” was carried out, but I am good with analogies, this is like taking twins to the doctor, one is terminally ill with a brain tumor, the other is fine, and you ask the doctor to tell you which one is going to die by only testing their ability to breath and hold their breath.
And back to my lunch
Similar threads
