New car break in?
Safety Car
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 4,647
Likes: 1
From: Objects in your mirror are losing , Long Island, NY
St. Jude Donor '08
Safety Car
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 4,647
Likes: 1
From: Objects in your mirror are losing , Long Island, NY
St. Jude Donor '08
It's a difficult process, but you can do it. It just takes a little self control, and some concentration. Here's what you gotta do:
1) Immediately upon receiveing the keys, fire it up..verify delivery mileage, then give it some good tachs to redline to make sure it sounds good.
2) Everything cool? Before you pull out of the dealer, preferrably right near the front enterance, initiate a burnout. Make sure the tires get nice and toasty, you're going to need the traction to put all the power to the ground.
3) Time to go? Stay back about 25' from the exit, then when traffic clears drop the hammer and rip out of the dealer onto the street sideways..take it up to the posted speed limit, preferrably 55 so you can power shift 2nd gear (if auto, you may still get rubber into 2nd).
4) At your first stop light, do a 0-60 run..should take around 4.5-5 seconds depending on traction. It's ok if you spin the tires too much, you can always practice launch techniques more later.
5) After step 4, go immediately to your nearest highway, road course, drag stip, or other closed course. Once you get there, you need to do a top end run, just to make sure all components can handle it. Keep it down until the vehicle stops accelerating, thus reaches top speed for about 1 minute. This should be somewhere between 175-190 depending on wind resistance.
6) Slow down, pull over, stop and address anything that may have spilled or need cleaning up. Done..welcome to the C6 Corvette!! You should have about 30 miles on 'er by now..good to go..great job!!
Okay, so that's one end of the spectrum..just do anything BUT that and you'll be fine
PRANkStER
Ok..so, this post is a total joke..but that's "driving it like you stole it" right?!!
1) Immediately upon receiveing the keys, fire it up..verify delivery mileage, then give it some good tachs to redline to make sure it sounds good.
2) Everything cool? Before you pull out of the dealer, preferrably right near the front enterance, initiate a burnout. Make sure the tires get nice and toasty, you're going to need the traction to put all the power to the ground.
3) Time to go? Stay back about 25' from the exit, then when traffic clears drop the hammer and rip out of the dealer onto the street sideways..take it up to the posted speed limit, preferrably 55 so you can power shift 2nd gear (if auto, you may still get rubber into 2nd).
4) At your first stop light, do a 0-60 run..should take around 4.5-5 seconds depending on traction. It's ok if you spin the tires too much, you can always practice launch techniques more later.
5) After step 4, go immediately to your nearest highway, road course, drag stip, or other closed course. Once you get there, you need to do a top end run, just to make sure all components can handle it. Keep it down until the vehicle stops accelerating, thus reaches top speed for about 1 minute. This should be somewhere between 175-190 depending on wind resistance.
6) Slow down, pull over, stop and address anything that may have spilled or need cleaning up. Done..welcome to the C6 Corvette!! You should have about 30 miles on 'er by now..good to go..great job!!
Okay, so that's one end of the spectrum..just do anything BUT that and you'll be fine
PRANkStER
Ok..so, this post is a total joke..but that's "driving it like you stole it" right?!!
Any LEO'S on the forum please arrest this member, and yes bring a straight jacket..
Team Owner
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 46,295
Likes: 2,596
From: Northern, VA
St. Jude Donor '15
"In honor of jpee"
Drive it like you own it.
When you steal a car, drive that one like you stole it.
The paragraph in the owner's manual is the best advice, except replace 55 mph with 100 mph.
Everything else such as no full throttle starts, long idling, hard braking... all good advice. Nothing wrong with getting into the throttle hard, it only says no full throttle starts.
No possible way in heck is the engine broken in when you buy it. It will have a few minutes of run time on it. Someone want to explain the magic engine parts that are fully broken in within minutes. Every performance car I've had runs the best 1/4s and dynos after a couple thousand miles. Gee what does that mean, could it be that it takes a while to fully break in? Yes.
The fact that 99.9% will survive being driven like they are stolen when brand new is more a testament to the durability, moreso than that is what is supposed to be done. It can be pushed, no reason to tiptoe around gingerly, but things like ring and pinion gears don't like to see max load and max heat on day one.
When you steal a car, drive that one like you stole it.
The paragraph in the owner's manual is the best advice, except replace 55 mph with 100 mph.
Everything else such as no full throttle starts, long idling, hard braking... all good advice. Nothing wrong with getting into the throttle hard, it only says no full throttle starts.
No possible way in heck is the engine broken in when you buy it. It will have a few minutes of run time on it. Someone want to explain the magic engine parts that are fully broken in within minutes. Every performance car I've had runs the best 1/4s and dynos after a couple thousand miles. Gee what does that mean, could it be that it takes a while to fully break in? Yes.
The fact that 99.9% will survive being driven like they are stolen when brand new is more a testament to the durability, moreso than that is what is supposed to be done. It can be pushed, no reason to tiptoe around gingerly, but things like ring and pinion gears don't like to see max load and max heat on day one.
Le Mans Master
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 5,328
Likes: 405
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 see posted sometimes 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 said another way, 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!
Ummm, no. I'm sure top fuel and pro stock drag racers drive around for 2000 miles to break in their engine before the first trip down the quarter to get their best 1/4s.
The fact that 99.9% will survive being driven like they are stolen when brand new is more a testament to the durability, moreso than that is what is supposed to be done. It can be pushed, no reason to tiptoe around gingerly, but things like ring and pinion gears don't like to see max load and max heat on day one.
We've all read the instructions and the word from the dealer saying vary the speed and keep the speed at or about 60-65 mph for the first 500 miles. And yes most of us do it. So, in goes my new forged 427 motor in my 05 Z51. A&A does the install and Charlie of RPM motors tunes it. They start the car, check for leaks, look at the oil pressure, and so on. They go out and put about 50 miles on the motor. Bring it back and strap it to the dyno and hammer it time and time again to the redling tunning the car. Results, It runs great, never had an issue, rings are seated and so on. That's how they broke in my motor,and all of the motors they build. So who's right? I don't know. Food for thought.
