Nothing personal against you DamonB - sorry if it came across as that. Just wanted him to feel a bit better that, for me at least, a loose oil cooler line took 3 months to work its way loose...

 

highway driving is not a good way to break-in a motor... in my opinion that is. but many people would agree that highway driving is not a good break-in. ideally you want a variance in rpms. usually city driving is perfect, you speed varys and speeds never get high. also i dont know how many tools you can fit in your car and how you planned to work on an rx7 on the side of the road the cars are naturally difficuit to work on under. im not hounding you just giving you insight so possibly you or whoever reads this can maybe pick up something and learn from your unfortunate mistake. hopefully everything works out eshafts are a dime a dozen these days so thats one less thing to worry about. good luck and keep us posted!

 

sucks to hear..gl on that
and hopefully the motor is ok

 

He said "shake down", not "break-in". When you have surfaces rubbing one another, miles are miles.

Honestly, after taking apart and putting back together one of these engines, I fail to see how varying rpms on break-in is going to make much of a difference. The seals are going to wear into the housing regardless of rpms. I'm not saying you should jump in the car and hit 8000 rpms on a fresh rebuild, but miles are miles.

 

The seals aren't the main concern on break in. Time on the seals is what it takes. It's the bearings that are so important on break in. I have found good results with long highway driving to break a motor in. Although this is after several days of idleing and searching for leaks/problems.

Good luck on the motor. Hopefully all you need are some bearins and a e-shaft. That sucks after all the hard work.

 

That depends on if they are new or used.

 

I was under the asumption they were new. Most FD's I have seen need new bearings.

 

This is why most people usually say "ask the rebuilder" about the break-in for the motor they just built. While I haven't built or help build a ton of FD motors, the few I have seen/done didn't need to have the bearings replaced. However, they were fairly low mileage engines that failed for other reasons initially (which is pretty typical of a FD motor).