STORM

Hello i got a quick question, for the past year I been building my sr and I finally got it to run and got 260 miles on it so far... i have not taking it over 50mph and been just driving it around town. My question is how much miles should I put on it until i can safely take it to get it tuned and be able to boost it?

My other question is if its ok to boost it at all while im still breaking it in? I'm talking about like 5psi at the most? And till what revolution its ok to take it up too? Or any other tips are welcome! Thanks!

STORM

anyone?

Blackzenki82

Don Ahrens (engine/race car/tranny builder, SCCA E prod racer for last 25+ years), told me @ 200 miles, change oil with conventional, another 2-300 miles change oil again, then another 500 miles, change oil again, then ride out on your last conventional oil change till you reach the total 1500-2000 mile mark, then use whatever type of oil you want, conventional or synthetic, i personally recommend Rotella T 15w40 for all intervals... shit's on point...

as far as driving, you want to drive it like a daily driver, don't romp on it, but don't take it too easy either either either, take it for a small highway trip, maybe 100-200 miles and just cruise. drive it as if you were borrowing your buddys moms car for the 1500-2000 miles...

after that, everything should be well seated, and broken in properly, then go rail on that motherfucker and enjoy all that hard work!!!

break it in right, it'll last forever, break it in wrong and well... deal with whatever comes your way...

STORM

thanks for the great info, just a quicky about the boos? should i boost it at all or little bit? my turbo does not really kick in till the 4-4.5 mark anyways

Empire

there ya go..

couldn't have said it better myself...

the idea is that as things seat properly and break in, you'll get little bits of metal floating around in the oil, which in turn, will tear up your brand new internals. That's why you change the oil so often. The cleaner the better.
You can't really change it too often. Don't use anything like mystery oil or any flushes either when you change it, just let it drip out on its own.
As far as driving it. You don't want to maintain a set rpm for a long time. (is is where me and blackzenkei82 differ) Drive it around town as if you borrowed your buddy's mom's '09 escalade. You know you couldn't afford to fix that shit if it blow up. As far as RPM limits go, it kinda depends on your build. The general idea that I've been told is that you add 1000 rpms every time you do an oil change. (assuming you follow the schedule that blackzenkei laid out) Starting at 2 ish grand. You're not gonna blow up if you go a little over or whatever. The more important part is throttle. The more throttle you give it, the more load the motor is under and load is what is going to cause problems during break in. You just don't want to not use the motor, as in idling up to speed type of thing. You need to create some heat so the oil can function and the metals can expand and shrink as they will.
as for the kind of oil, rotella is pretty good. Don't go below 15w40. most people would say use 20w50 during break in and then just work your way down to the thinner stuff you would use everyday once you're done with break in.

Epstein

I've always done performance break-ins the hard way. On a motor with a fresh hone and new rings, I just let it idle and rev to 2-3k under no load for 30 minutes with 10W30 synth. Then change the oil (10W30 synth) and filter, and head out to the dyno to start doing low boost pulls. Compression and leakdown were always great. Made a ton of power. Never had any issues.

The explanation I was given by the person who taught me this was that you need to load up the hard rings so that they file against the fresh honed walls while they're roughest. Made sense to me.

Crazy Eyez

I really like that method, that is almost exactly the same way you break in an aircraft engine, some things are different, but almost the same..I would say go with this way Storm.

A-ron

when i had mine built i started it let it warm up then rev'd it to 2.5-3k a few times drove it 100 miles.change the oil then kept changing the oil every 250-500 miles till i it 1,500 miles then i used synth oil..

and i would not put it under boost till about 500+ miles to get the rings seated in right.

B18C5-EG

Agreed, besides using synthetic initially. The additives in synthetic create a thicker film on the cylinder walls as opposed to mineral oil that allows a little metal to metal contact so that the rings contour to the cylinders and get rid of some hot spots. Also mineral oil does not contain detergents that swell the neoprene seals up, initially I like to let the seals set, make sure everything is fine, then throw in the synthetic.

I respect your experience/judgment and am not saying what you're doing is wrong, just would like to know why you choose to run synthetic initially.

Speed cat

i used conventional on my ka24de I just rebuilt. I changed the oil after the first 100 miles, then changed again on 400 miles, I started beating the piss out of it after 400 miles, and Ill let you know how it holds up if another thread opens up like this or something goes wrong. I have since at 500 miles drifted around one night for like 20 minutes beating the piss out of it and brought it up to 5000-5500 rpms a couple times on the road 2. well see if its alive and well at 2500 miles....and what the compression test is