new engine breaking in rules...
 

Finally got my '84 12 BP running. I always thought that for any rebuilt engine the breaking in takes about 500 miles, more so with new bearings. I went to a local shop today and the guy started messing around with my engine and had it reved up to like 7500 rpm mark before i told him that it only had 40 miles on the engine. He said that it shouldn't matter too much unless i had new bearings. Does anyone know if it's true and if not could he have hurt my new engine? Thanks for any responses

you shouldn't rev a new/rebuilt engine of any type higher than 3500-4000 rpm I believe for the first 500 miles, then after that, you have to go easy on it for the next 1000 or so miles...the guy shouldn't have hurt anything by doing it a couple times, but if he held it there for prolonged periods of time, it could have taken life off your seals, etc, and could cause sealing problems if the metal seals don't wear in properly...

I doubt there would be any problems but that was pretty stupid of him.

typical break in is as was stated. 3.5-4k max rpm and 500 miles stop and go driving.

I just hope you have carbon apex seals in there, right? ...and pre-mixing. If the housings were in good shape and the apex seals too, i'd say your fine.

What break in, it's a rotary. Run it for 10 minutes and I'm sure it's good to go, it's not like you're setting piston rings :p

Actually i'm using stock seals and i do have it on pre-mixing but it is not all the way. The housings have about 50k on them. I ran the engine afterwards yesterday, it seems fine. I just hope it is still going to last for some time. It does make sence what Zulu said, it shouldn't really take too long for a rotary to break in.

This guy has a different take on how to break-in an engine. Although the site design is pretty horrendous he does have some interesting points. Check it out!

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

you're joking right?

No. Think about it, what is there that needs a breakin. If your rotor is scraping along the sides of your housings it's gonna be fux0r3d anyway, you have no pistonrings to seat (if you're familiar with piston engines, the cylinders are kinda like files, and the pistonrings eat away at this until it's smooth - assuming you break it in propperly), infact the only thing that I can see getting "used to anything" would be bearings, and they should only take one or two warm-cool cycles to ensure they're in propperly. Other than that it's either built wrong or good to go.

That would be kind of nice if that is all it took to break in the engine and get more power. Still don't know about that though, got to find someone that have tried it with a rotary.