The Corvette engineers swear by this.

However, I have experience the other way, as well.

It probably doesn't matter, not with today's engines and oil.

 

adam1991,

Would you happen to have any links to Corvette websites that talk about this? For my curiosity, I'd like to read more about what other car enthusiasts feel about this type of break in. Many of the readers of the Porsche website where I found this also were in favor of this type of break in. This was mostly in relation to rebuilt 911 air cooled engines.

Thanks!!

Quincy

 

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

Just curious. On a previous thread someone mentioned engine break in and it reminded me about another automotive forum thread, where I saw reference to this web site on engine break in. Basically it says drive it hard at first to seat the piston rings.

Wanted to see what the OdyClubbers think. Anyone do this on their Odyssey?

Quincy
Fountain Valley, CA
2003 EX-L Nav

I'll repeat my position again: Why not drive it hard when it's new? Think of Ferrari, a company known for making high performance cars. If they were to have consistent engine failures, it would be bad for their image. However, every, and I mean **EVERY** new Ferrari that rolls out their factory is driven at full throttle and to redline before it ever gets put on the semi to deliver to the dealer. This is to ensure that every customer gets the performance they've paid for.

If Ferrari, a company which would suffer a huge image problem if they were to have engine problems, would do this, why would it hurt a Honda motor?

Wayne

 

I read or watched somewhere that Toyota pulls an engine per week off the assembly line and tortures it in a special room running at full throttle and revving it up and down, etc. They go for weeks with no trouble.

Drive it as you please on day 1. It is what I did on a rebuilt engine in an '82 supra and I had put some 130,000 miles on the rebuilt engine (232,000 miles on vehicle) by the time I sold the car. No problems encountered by driving it hard, other than the tickets.

 

Engine Break in

I think short full throttle operation are the way to seat Piston Rings. Don't run at high RPM. I did this to my Ody off the stop lights many times. The Spark Plugs electrode color is about the same as the tan of this page. New or overhauled Aircraft Engines are done this way. Increased combustion chamber pressure forces the Rings against the Cyl. walls for proper seating.--jomo5

 

Actually Wayne, Ferrari engines ARE known for being fragile and problematic.

I tend to take the middle ground. Give it fairly robust throttle as needed when new, but don't maintain steady, high rpms for a long time (i.e. 80 mph on the freeway for a few hours). Also don't forget that the rings need seating on both sides.

Heavy throttle breaks in one side. Heavy compression braking breaks them in on the other. On an automatic trans, you can do this by using D3 on minor 45-50 mph highways with lots of stoplights. Watch ahead and take your foot off the gas well before you start to brake.

This gives you better distribution between high compression and high vacuum in the cylinders.

 

Actually Wayne, Ferrari engines ARE known for being fragile and problematic.

Oh, okay, you're right. As a whole, they do have lots of things that need attention, but they are pretty robust as far as rings, pistons, and cylinder walls.

Living in a Microsoft neighborhood, there's probably more 308/328/348/355/360's driving around than Hyundais, and I know several with pretty significant and hard mileage that have no compression/ring problems.

Wayne

 

adam1991,

Would you happen to have any links to Corvette websites that talk about this?

No, sorry. For years I've been reading this about the Corvette engineers in Car and Driver magazine.

 

Also don't forget that the rings need seating on both sides.

What do you mean both sides? Top and bottom?
I've never heard of this procedure and I've rebuilt a couple of dozen engines. I've never seen a set of rings that would seat any differently under a "braking" load than a massive explosion that causes an up and down motion. Don't both sides, top and bottom, of the rings press evenly on the cylinder walls and have even pressure in the ring groove?

Can you elaborate on this? I can't even imagine how this would cause any better seating of the rings..... But I would like to be better educated.......
I'm not a teenager anymore so I KNOW I don't know EVERYTHING
:stupid:

 

Engine Breakin

The Combustion pressure forces the Ring out against the cyl.wall . A well known fact. I too have overhauled many Engines. 41 were Aircraft Engines and 6 Automobile Engines. jomo5

 

Right, I got it about the combustion pressure and how that works.

So, explain the part about the deceleration or braking pressure and where that makes any difference to the rings seating.

 

Engine Breakin

I'm not the one that mentioned braking or decceleration . My father told me -Never by a used car that was driven only to Church by a little old Lady on Sundays. I once rode in a New York Taxi that had 290,000 miles on the Engine. No overhauls. Those drivers don't baby them. jomo

 

I don't claim to know all the physics of it, I'm afraid. I read it on a site like this a while back and it sounded reasonable to me.

Think of it statically for a second. The piston sits inside the cylinder and the rings fill the gap. You add high pressure, and the rings will flex downwards ever so slightly. Remove the pressure and replace it with vacuum and the rings are pulled upwards slightly.

Using D3 on a frequently stoplighted highway gets you lots of cycles between compression and vacuum in the cylinders.

It could all be rot, but I have noticed that most car owners manuals recommend NOT sustaining high steady speed for the first few hundred miles, so that portion, at least, of the article jibes well with the owners manuals.

 

Engine Break In

Consider the pressure against the top ring. As the pressure increases, it impinges at the top of the ring as you stated.But when it moves a few thousants down, it leaves room for the pressure to move inward of the ring groove and get behind the ring and force the ring against the Cylinder wall. This is one reason why prolong high RPM [ resutant high ring temp.] is not recommended. Show power burst help take the "mountain tops" from the Cyl. walls. ----jomo5

 

Think of it statically for a second. The piston sits inside the cylinder and the rings fill the gap. You add high pressure, and the rings will flex downwards ever so slightly. Remove the pressure and replace it with vacuum and the rings are pulled upwards slightly.

I find this hard to believe. First, if you have a 10:1 compression motor like the Ody, there will be 147 PSI prior to combustion. If you have a total vacuum, there will only be a -14.7 PSI difference the other way. There's absolutely no way there can be a total vacuum in there, and since the intake tract isn't sealed and there's no way to stop the flow entirely, the vacuum is going to only be very slight.

Aren't the gauges that measure engine vacuum calibrated to something like -60 mmHg? If so, atmospheric pressure at sea level is around 1000 mmHg. This is an insubstantial amount of vacuum that the cylinder sees and I can't believe that any ring is that loose so that it will move in response that very slight pressure differential.

I'm not saying that doing the deceleration doesn't work, only that if it does work, it can't be attributed to cylinder vacuum. Like many things discovered "by accident" over the years, unless someone with an engineering or scientific background really looks at the issue, the causes are often misattributed. This seems to be one of those cases.

Wayne

 

I broke my Odyssey in as recommended in the owner's manual and my rings seem to be fairly well seated. On our recent 5400 mile high-speed cross-country trip, there was virtually NO oil consumption. I noted exactly where the oil was on the dipstick at the start and finish, on the same garage surface and the readings were virtually identical.

Back in my younger days, it was always said that a car which had a fast, hard break-in would be faster. As a rule, they were and the reason was that the hard running with a new, tight engine caused some premature wear and expansion of the internal clearances, thus a reduction of power loss due to friction. Later, most of these motors became gross oil burners and wore out well before their time.

These days of greatly optimized production and close fuel metering (carbs dumping extra fuel into cylinders did not help), it seems rare that a motor does not do well, no matter who breaks it in or how they do it. Of course, engines run to such high mileages these days that, I suppose, one which dies at 125K or 150K could be labeled a premature failure, which could have been avoided with a bit more TLC, especially during break-in.

Jerry O.

 

Re: Engine Break In

...Show power burst help take the "mountain tops" from the Cyl. walls. ----jomo5

I'm guessing you refer to the itty bitty ridge that needs to be reamed out of the top of a cylinder in order to push the pistons out the top of the cylinder during an engine rebuild.

If so, I've got a question for you multiple engine rebuilder fella's. Why would my '82 Supra in-line six engine with 115K miles not have an inkling of a ridge when rebuilt?

The machine shop doing the work called me to verify (a) the engine had 115K miles on it and (b) that the engine had run out of oil (cams were shot along with a thrown rod bearing). I answered in the affirmative.

The guys at the machine shop said they'd never sheen a Chevy engine with that high miles without a ridge at the top. They were able to slip the pistons out (w/rings) after removing the head.

That lack of a ridge always puzzled me. Is it due to toyota manufacturing tolerances, or ring material or what?

Any ideas?

 

Re: Re: Engine Break In

If so, I've got a question for you multiple engine rebuilder fella's. Why would my '82 Supra in-line six engine with 115K miles not have an inkling of a ridge when rebuilt?

That lack of a ridge always puzzled me. Is it due to toyota manufacturing tolerances, or ring material or what?

Any ideas?

I've had a couple of engines that the pistons just slid right out of. (after taking the head off). There was only the smallest ridge but the the rings were so shot they offered zero resistance.

There is a machining tools to remove the ridge from the cylinder. Maybe one guy removed the ridge while the other guy was outside smoking a doobie. When he came back.. no ridge: wow!


It could be a lot of reasons including a very well made engine. I rebuilt a Volvo 4 cylinder once and when I took the head to the machine shop he was very annoyed that he could only charge me for resurfacing the valve faces. The engine had 140k miles on it from the original owner. No major repairs had ever been done.
The machinist told me he really didn't like working on Volvo stuff. There was no money in it. I can't remember if there was a ridge on the cylinder tops or not.... maybe I shouldn't have stepped outside for that smoke break.... :stupid:

 

LOL !!

 

Pulled the head off my Accord at 100K. No ridge at all. In fact, you could still see the cross pattern left by the original honing. A Chevy fan friend of mine says he's never pulled an engine apart with that kind of miles and found no ridge. I believe him, as he's only pulled GM engines apart.

 

Ckinder Ridges

Response it for RIPENNY. The ridges I was talking about were the cylinder wall imperfections. After the honing process, there is a very minute rough surface and in a spiral pattern. Some call it deglazing. It helps the breakin process.

Top of the bore ridges normally occur in iron blocks from normal wear of the rings. Chrome plated walls don't show wear. The rings are iron. I still have a Ridge Reamer tool that I no longer use. Your Engine must have had a really hard block. I once had a Hudson Hornet auto and had almost no ridge after 65,000 miles. The Engine block was a Chrome alloy. Very noisy engine. jomo5

 

Honda engines have a cast iron cylinder liner.

 

Re: Re: Engine break in. Has anyone tried this?

I'll repeat my position again: Why not drive it hard when it's new? Think of Ferrari, a company known for making high performance cars. If they were to have consistent engine failures, it would be bad for their image. However, every, and I mean **EVERY** new Ferrari that rolls out their factory is driven at full throttle and to redline before it ever gets put on the semi to deliver to the dealer. This is to ensure that every customer gets the performance they've paid for.

If Ferrari, a company which would suffer a huge image problem if they were to have engine problems, would do this, why would it hurt a Honda motor?

Wayne

There's a big hole in your argument. There's no Ferrari with 300+K on the original engine and tranny. On the contrary, I've seen many Integras, Accords and Civics got 250K, 300K, even 400-500K on the original engine and tranny.

 

Re: Re: Re: Engine break in. Has anyone tried this?

There's a big hole in your argument. There's no Ferrari with 300+K on the original engine and tranny. On the contrary, I've seen many Integras, Accords and Civics got 250K, 300K, even 400-500K on the original engine and tranny.

The reason is that a Ferrari is not an every day commuter car so you would be very hard pressed to get that many miles on any newer Ferrari. I'm sure there are examples out there, though, probably as many on a percent basis as you would find with very high miles on, say, an S2000. Neither is suited for anything more than credit-card traveling, and then poorly at that.

Even so, Ferrari has now won the Formula One manufacturers championship six times in a row now. They should know a little bit about engine technology from this experience and they do follow the procedure I outlined above. Why do you think that's so?

Wayne

 

Re: Ckinder Ridges

Top of the bore ridges normally occur in iron blocks from normal wear of the rings. Chrome plated walls don't show wear.

I've never heard of chrome plated cylinder walls, can you please elaborate. I thought 99% of cylinder walls were cast iron.

This business about break-in.... I would follow Honda's recommendation. I always thought that the type of break-in depends what type of cam you are using. Solid vs hydraulic vs roller lifter set ups require different break in procedures.