engine break in question
 

Just rebuilds my engine with resurfaced and renitrided irons, new bearings in the rotors and gears and new apex seals of course. I reused my side seals and housings and it's new everything else. My question is: is my break in procedure the same as any other rebuild? Do I have to stick to city miles? My logic is that I'm "breaking in" the bearings and apex seals. In the scope of the break in period, I don't see the irons wearing a great deal and I don't think you can glaze a bearing and since the housings are already "worn" there's not much to be done there either.

From what I am understanding, the only thinga needing to be "broken in" are the apex seals and the bearings. Should I stick to the standard break in procedures or can I do something different?

Stick to the standard,. Dont rev the hell out of it... lol. I am assuming its not tune yet, so no spirit driving, probably you know that too. :icon_tup:

Yep, standard break in.

- Start car for the first, time run for 15-20 minutes to get up to temperature and burn off crap. Change oil and filter
- 500 miles, no boost, 4000 RPM max, try to do city driving with varying revs and heat cycles. Change oil and filter.
- 500 miles, same driving, some more RPM and low boost. Change oil and filter.

Then drive as usual and usual oil changes.

May also want to change coolant at 1000 miles just to get any crap that got in the cooling system during the rebuild out.

Big thing with the oil/filter changes is to get all the wear material out of the engine as it breaks in as well as getting any trash/junk from the rebuild process out.

With new bearings you definitely want a break in, they will need to seat to the E-shaft.

Dale

Understood. Thanks for the information dale. I am ~200mi into the break in now. Just doing laps around town. It's kind of annoying. It's gonna be a little more fun once I get into the second half and can boost a little bit. One small problem I'm having now is that on occasion it won't want to idle. The revs slowly start to drop and it tries to stall. If I blip the throttle to ~1500 then it will either do it again or idle perfect. Sometimes it won't do it all. Is this something normal of a new engine? It's doing a lot of weird things and I'm kind of writing them off as "new engine problems" that will go away in time when everything has settled in. It drives perfect otherwise.

Even if the OMP is on and working, run premix at lease for break in.

Absolutely... I have no omp and I am doing 1:1 with the premix. 1oz/gal

That's not normal for a rebuilt engine, make sude idle adjustment and tps voltage are reading correct, also if u still have the tb wax thing double check coolant level.

Tps voltages are correct and if I adjust the idle too much with the screw then it will lock in super high around 1200-1400. The best idle adjustments I've been able to get are from fuel adjustments in settings 5 I think it is. Power fc. Changing my injectors to +0.20 has given the best idle so far.

Also want to note, it doesn't do it when the fans are on or when cold. It could very well be a tuning issue.

Don't forget to include plenty of COMPLETE heat cycles (full operating temp, completely cold (like 5+ hours cold), full operating temp, completely cold, etc., etc.) during your break in process as well. I wouldn't (personally) consider a car properly broken in based on mileage alone.. I.E. I wouldn't just go on a 1,000 mile road trip the day after the first startup, with an oil change in the middle, then call it complete :lol:

But I'm a masochist with pretty solid self-discipline when it comes to breaking in stuff.

That's what I'm doing. I drive the car once a day and that's at night between 1 and 3am when the roads are empty. I do "city miles" for a few hours then go home and repeat the process the next day. so as far as heat cycles go, it's getting that. With the roads empty, I'm free to stop and go as I please. Its really nice. It's also pretty crazy since 80% of the traffic is just police. A little annoying the way they just follow you then turn off somewhere but I'm not doing anything wrong so........ it's whatever I guess =/