i have heard about that

 

I think a brief break-in period is more for the brakes and the transmission than for the engine. In fact, there's a school of thought regarding engine break-in that says you should 'get on it' right away to seat the rings properly. The following was written about motorcycle engines but the same theory applies to automobile engines....

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

The reliability of your modified car will be determined by the quality of the parts and workmanship as well as the manner in which you use your car. I replaced my stock engine with a fully built LPE motor (along with other modifications). I run road courses regularly and my car has been extremely reliable. Many of the premier tuner shops offer excellent warranties on their modification packages (excepting if you race your car which is common in the industry).

 

Been on the factory tour a couple times. Once they come off the assembly line, the driver guns it over these speed bumps and it goes right into a dyno room where they run the crap out of it and it goes through all these diagnostic tests. If it passes, most do, it doesn't get parked for repair in that area and it goes into what I call the hurricane car wash. It gets blasted with water in the car wash to check for seal leaks. That's why I find it funny that many vette owners don't want to drive their car in rain, ie only been in rain 2 times, etc (I can understand if you just washed and detailed the car:o)

 

As a guy who daily drove his supercharged C6 right through winter, snow and all, I think people that are afraid to drive their cars in the rain are hilarious!

 

Break in periods arent about breaking, its about letting two surfaces wear into each other before they are hardened from a sufficient number of miles. Brakes, clutches and other such moving parts do better with a little soft break in period.

Now the engine is a different story. An engine makes its best power by seating the rings under low rpm high stress so flooring the car under 4000rpm's will do this best for a few hundred followed by a period of miles flooring the car to redline. Babying an engine for 500 miles gets you a soggy engine with less peak power for the rest of its life.

 

I have a need for speed. I've had it for many years. I understand and empathize with all those who share this condition. That said, let me tell you why I won't mod my car for power.

For me: the likely loss of warranty protection; the difficult, costly and aggravating process of finding someone who can sort out the particular combination of mods and properly set up/tune the car; the fact that significant power increases require improvements in braking, handling, etc. all at additional cost; the significant cost of the actual mods; and yes, the loss of some reliability due to the mods; all weigh against power modding.

The fact is that my need for speed was one of the many reasons I bought my previous and current vette in the first place. IMHO these cars don't need mods to go fast... after all we are talking about Corvettes.

Anyway, if you want to mod your car and have the ability to go faster -that's up to you. I won't think any the less of you for it, nor should anyone else on this forum - its just not for me. Your call.



Save the Wave

 

Very well put. Personally, I'd say after your first tank of gas, you are good to go. Most motors are tested before they are put in the car so the odds are that they are already broken in. I'm glad someone brought up the seating of the rings.

 

Plenty of mods can be done with high reliability. Sometimes you need to adjust your maintenance schedule to reflect the changes made. For example, put a high lift cam in the car, don't expect 100,000 miles out of the springs. Maybe you only get 15,000 - 25,000 miles out of them. The point is to know this and plan inspections or swaps accordingly.

 

the car goes 198 mph and is so quick right from GM..... I suggest driving school events and leave the car alone..

The added maintaince is not worth the extra power ...IMO

Good luck deciding..

 

Old school...and I've been there. The breakin period was there because motors were manuafactured with rough cross hatched cylinder walls. Piston rings were a little on the soft side too. They had to get to "know" each other, ie wear in. New engines have smooth cylinder walls and rings that are designed to resist wear. They don't have to wear together to form a good team. These days machining tolerances are tight. If your engine is good after a few thousand miles, chances are, it's good to go for many more. There's really no tried and tru method to break in a new motor. It doesn't need a bread in period.

 

6 months to a year !! ?? Cmon drive that thing !!!

 

I agree... I never understood what the big deal about driving in the rain was. I actually had a guy tell me "You don't just drive these cars every day. They can't be taken out in the rain." WTF ???

 

The break-in period is for the ring and pinion, brakes, and clutch. There is no break-in period for the engine, the rings are seated by the time the car gets to your hands. This is from an old post years ago I resurrect everytime the Motoman link pops up:

"Ring sealing has already been achieved by the time you pick up your car 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 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, 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!"


This is the whole post where I discuss some of his other "theories":
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1553710622-post46.html

 

I hear they have Zen classes (or brain washing) that can allow a guy like me live with 1/2 the 700hp that I have. For now dont knock it till you try it. Like my 700rwhp/700rwtq forged engine nitrous C5, I bought this car to build it to be better than 99% of the corvettes in existence. I dont want a stock car or its boring performance. 700hp with traction isnt what GM sells and 505 flywheel doesnt cut it for me especially if you cant gear the car (Z06 and Zr1....boring). What you own may look like my car but it certainly isnt doing what my car does. Now please dont think I'm disrespecting you or your opinion. I just know if I had my car there with 50k miles and a stock car with 50k miles, mine would withstand the harder driving you suggest better than a stock car. Valve float alone destroys cars that have miles on them. Hot spots on the tops of pistons causing 10-15 degrees timing to be pulled because they ran pig rich from birth ends engines.

As far as maintainance, the only thing that ever broke on my car are two axles when the GM service buletin was followed concerning torquing the axle bolts down to 160ft lbs. My third one is in there at 100ft lbs and fine. So much for GM knows best.

No breaks, no maintainance issues and the only thing original in my car is the crank.

Nitrous
Heads/cam
Supercharger 12psi
Lev 4 trans
Gears
Every bolt-on you can think of.

I realize that candles that burn twice as bright cant last as long as the dimmer one but just to bust the stock GM party, your stock car ingests much oil even with a catch can, runs single valve springs which wont like life after some miles, and has some questionable parts in it for anyone thinking they will last 100k miles such as its valves and connecting rods.

A series of mods I can think of that will outlast a stock corvette center around these mods:

Headers: Reducing back pressure reduces strain on all engine parts and produces free power.

Tune: All model corvettes run pig rich from the factory and by the time they have 10k miles on them you cant extract as much power from the engine unless its heads are removed to scrap off the carbon deposits left there from this and not stopping oil ingestion

Mod #3-a catch can or breather can to stop oil ingestion....another SERIOUS issue with stock cars. Oil in the combustion chamber lowers octane rating, deposits all sorts of things making hot spots on the pistons

Timing chain: Are you kidding me?? Anyone that thinks this is passable on the corvette is an idiot. A IWIS ketten chain is way more reliable that the stock chain.

Valves: 3 peice stock valves? The one piece stainless valves used on head/cam jobs are 1000% more reliable than a stock valve....especially the hollow stems

Valve Springs: Since when is a stock single valve spring more reliable than a dual spring used on every H/C job out there? The stock springs are barely enough for the lobe and lift of the stock cam when they are new. I have so many guys with 50k-60k miles on their various LS engine cars and they all have valvetrain instability above 5500rpm and it can be seen on a dyno and heard when they drive.

Air cleaner: We all breath better through a straw dont we?

Airflow mods: Ported TB's and intake manifolds produce no stress on an engine at all and they increase fuel economy. ZERO reliability drop is seen with porting them.

Gears: steeper gears reduce stress on all driveline parts before them. The only time more stress is evident is when you get on it and then only the parts after the diff see more stress but then driving harder is the only mod that does this.



If some one came to me and asked for the best thing they can do for their new car's longevity, I would tell them to get a good set of ported heads on their car with one piece valves and dual springs. The heads will do 30rwhp more than stock heads even without a cam (I did this mod 72 hours after buying my car). They should port the intake and TB. They should also get a breather catch can and a full dyno tune. At 60-70k miles it will do 50-70rwhp better than a stock car depending on how bad the valvetrain is at that point on the stock car.

Gears will extend the clutch's life or auto trans' life since they reduce forward inertia.

If I daily drove this car and didnt ask it to perform at 700+rwhp, it would have no issue what so ever lasting longer than a stock car. It is the driving style that kills a car like mine. A head cam car with reasonable lobes will last longer than stock with zero reliability issues. Better chain, better valve springs, better valves, better tune....longer life.

I agree the Z06 is a great runner and hits 198 but in the time it takes one to hit 198, my car would likely have enough time to hit that and also come to a stop. I didnt buy a daily driver for reliability but I do still have that with my car. I'll put my faith into the parts in my build against a stock vette for anything more than aggressive driving which voids the warranty anyway. GM has denied warranty coverage to forum members with rubber in the wheel wells........

The SPINformula for added longevity and reliability:

Replace the stock cylinder heads with ported heads (stronger valves/springs)
Increase cam duration 20 degrees but do not increase lift.
Headers/high flow cats
Ported TB/Intake manifold
Tune
Gears
Air cleaner assembly
Breather catch can
IWIS timing chain

This set-up will outlast a stock car and get better economy if driven so. Added maintainance.......NONE

 

Spin,

What kind of HP/TQ gains would an LS3 see from these reliability mods? I may tell the wife I need to do this if my GM warranty folds with GM. There is a silver lining!!

 

I'd bet 470rwhp.

I've seen 430rwhp without a cam or heads or even a ported intake manifold.

Charlie from RPM has gotten one over 470rwhp tuned on torco without touching heads/cam!

 

Listen to Spin! He called mine within .65HP!

 

Spin lives large so does his vehicle.

 

I am very careful with a new engine since I don't have loads of cash to throw away, also, if something is going to go wrong I would rather the dealer fix it than have it be on my dime. I drive the **** out of my cars so I don't mind waiting a month or two to see if there are any issues before I tear into them.

 

It's safe to assume that a 9sec Z06 is harder to maintain & keep reliable than a stock car........