I know for breaking in the tranny/rear end, taking it easy is good. As far as seating the rings properly, isn't it a lot better to drive the car fairly hard? I think seating the rings is very important.

 

Drive it like you stole it.

 

I tried to follow the break-in procedure.....
After 200 miles I went WOT cause the wife says...."Stop driving like an old man and show me what this thing can do!!".....That was the end of my break in.

 

You're correct, the break-in is more for the gears in the transmission and especially the ring and pinion gears in the differential (brakes too). The engine rings are already seated...seating has already been achieved because the rings are what's referred to as "moly" rings. The ring material is either cast iron or steel but the face of the ring that rides on the cylinder wall has a "moly" (molybdenum) coating sprayed on or imbedded into the face of the ring. The moly coating is porous (holds oil) and relatively soft compared to the cylinder wall, therefore it will "conform"/break-in to the cylinder wall easily and quickly. Here's a link showing different ring materials and advantages/disadvantages: http://www.raceseek.com/piston_ring_tech.htm
Notice the moly rings (used by US manufacturers) have easy break-in and the chrome faced/plated/steel rings (used by most Japanese manufacturers) have difficult break-in. The "chrome" rings are very hard requiring a rough surface finish and a break-in interval to seat the rings. This break-in interval consists of the accelerate/decelerate cycles you keep seeing in different threads but is simply not needed for engines with moly rings as the break-in is almost instantaneous. Here's another link to help understand what's going on with the best part at the bottom under the "Cylinder Bore Refinishing" header: http://www.babcox.com/editorial/ar/eb90329.htm
Keep reading all the way to the bottom (Analyzing Cylinder Bore Finishes) to get an understanding of the terms used in the "Refinishing" section. One thing they didn't explain was the concept of "Plateau Finish". If you could put the cylinder wall after initial honing under an Electron Microscope (which somebody else referred to in another post here about the surface of the gears), it would look like the Rocky Mountains with the peaks and valleys. When the final hone is done for the moly rings, the peaks are "knocked down" and again, under the microscope, the surface now looks like the tops of the mountains have been taken off: plateaus.
Here is a small pertinent excerpt: "Federal-Mogul’s Gabrielson says a "plateau finish" is the optimum bore finish for today’s moly-faced rings. A plateau bore finish is what all types of rings eventually produce when they are fully seated, so the closer the bore can be prefinished to a plateau-like condition the less the rings and cylinders will wear as the engine breaks in, the better the rings will seal right from the start, and the longer the rings will last."
Basically, the plateau finish is what all cylinder walls look like AFTER break-in...so the moly rings are ahead of the game by starting with the plateau finish or ring sealing has already been achieved when you pick up your car.
Also to reiterate the break-in for gears, try this:
http://www.ringpinion.com/FAQ.aspx#37
And ring and pinions are their specialty!

GM spent a lot of time, effort, and money to come up with the best break-in procedure. Just stick to that and you'll be ok.

 

I read that the Vette needs the 500 mile break in for the clutch,and toallow for the trannie and rear end to break in .The engine is good to go when you purchase it .I don't know if this is a fact,but I did this procedure with my 06 and it really runs great.No problems at 8100 miles.

 

Thats what I wanted to say!

 

this is GREAT information.

thank you GLASS!!!!

 

This is the best explanation of LS engine ring seating I've seen -- based in fact, not "lore." Good stuff!

 

I sgree, thanks Glass!!!

 

Nothing personal, but Federal-Mogul is a bankrupt company that is not very well perceived to provide quality engine products. Just ask Chrysler that has thousand of engine with bad Federal-Mogul pistons that they don't know what to do with.

I worked for them in the late 80's and you could see the train wreck coming....

 

Tough crowd.

Many, many years of industry leadership, and we dance on their grave. Guess that their bankrupcy pretty much nullifies everything they have ever done, huh?

 

I'm almost to the magical 500 mile mark. I've only gone about 1/2 throttle once or twice. I am anxious to see what I've got. I'm more anxious to improve on it. I already cancelled the extended warranty. No way I can wait three years to modify this car.

San

 

For all practical purposes (can be affected by break-in procedure) ring sealing has already been achieved before the car leaves the factory. This keeps coming up because of the typical break in for some diesels which often have very hard rings and liners and normally require a certain percentage (depends on the engine and materials used but up to 80% or more of the continous duty load rating in some cases) of loading to achieve ring seal. This more and more refers to engines that have been rebuilt or in-framed as is more typically seen out in the wild because many large OEMs such as Cat now run their engines on load banks before they are sold as new with ring sealing being one of the major goals.

The company that owns my boat has somewhat over 100 of the larger diesel engines (over 1000hp) and many more of the smaller units making them NC norths single largest customer and a major player overall for Cat. While less so they are also important customers for the other OEMs. Some years back we got a pilot engine from cummins. There were several reps and engineers that were flow up with the engine and I spoke at length with one of the engineers. I was mostly trying to pump him for information about the new direct injection 5.9 liter due to be released in the 03 Dodge trucks. He was well schooled and gave up little info but while talking we did get into break-in and ring sealing. He told me that the materials used were specifically chosen so that the engines could achieve ring seal with the weight of the truck alone as load. Further, as far as he knew there was no engine made by any OEM for the mass consumer market (gas or diesel) that required any particular break-in to achieve ring sealing. This because while more hours could be reached with different materials the consumer market engine will normally run less than 10k hours in its lifetime and the rings themselves need only seal for somewhat more than the warranty period and materials are chosen based on the OEMs percieved quality goals. In other words they dont want to have to warranty engines that were not broke in properly and there is no need to use materials that would require break-in procedures for ring sealing to attain the target engine hours on a light car or truck.