supplementing with the following information:

Break In Secrets--How To Break In New Motorcycle and Car Engines For More Power

Its an interesting read and plausible.

Again... Thoughts?

 

I've never bought a new bike but I agree with the hard break in procedure. The goal is to set the piston seals well and you can't really do that low in the RPMs.

 

I give my new bikes 300 miles of "baby riding". On my '16 R1 I did less than 7k for about 40 miles. Then I would go up to 7-10k, but would be quick shifts 3 gears or so, back off. Then maybe once or twice I'd go a little higher, but not redline...quick shifting, so i'm not in one gear too long at high range....back off.
Regardless of where I am at 300 miles...I give it all she's got. In fact, my first wide open run was racing an S1000r...just over 300 miles.

This has never failed me and I've had a lot of brand new bikes.

 

This is a much debated topic. Personally, I just cruise on it for 500 miles then change the filter and oil. Then I will open it up to my normal way of riding. Not all virgin bikes are the same, some you have to ease into it and others you can go 100 mph to pound town.

 

By this method,

you can see that you would have lost the 20 mile window you had to make the best seal you could possibly make on the bike.. And I quote:

What's The Best Way To Break-In A New Engine ??
The Short Answer: Run it Hard !

Why ??
Nowadays, the piston ring seal is really what the break in process is all about. Contrary to popular belief, piston rings don't seal the combustion pressure by spring tension. Ring tension is necessary only to "scrape" the oil to prevent it from entering the combustion chamber.

If you think about it, the ring exerts maybe 5-10 lbs of spring tension against the cylinder wall ...
How can such a small amount of spring tension seal against thousands of
PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch) of combustion pressure ??
Of course it can't.

How Do Rings Seal Against Tremendous Combustion Pressure ??

From the actual gas pressure itself !! It passes over the top of the ring, and gets behind it to force it outward against the cylinder wall. The problem is that new rings are far from perfect and they must be worn in quite a bit in order to completely seal all the way around the bore. If the gas pressure is strong enough during the engine's first miles of operation (open that throttle !!!), then the entire ring will wear into
the cylinder surface, to seal the combustion pressure as well as possible.


The Problem With "Easy Break In" ...
The honed crosshatch pattern in the cylinder bore acts like a file to allow the rings to wear. The rings quickly wear down the "peaks" of this roughness, regardless of how hard the engine is run.

There's a very small window of opportunity to get the rings to seal really well ... the first 20 miles !!

If the rings aren't forced against the walls soon enough, they'll use up the roughness before they fully seat. Once that happens there is no solution but to re hone the cylinders, install new rings and start over again.

Fortunately, most new sportbike owners can't resist the urge to "open it up" once or twice,
which is why more engines don't have this problem !!

An additional factor that you may not have realized, is that the person at the dealership who set up your bike probably blasted your brand new bike pretty hard on the "test run". So, without realizing it, that adrenaline crazed set - up mechanic actually did you a huge favor !!

 

not sure this applies to engines that have nikasil or other plating on the cylinder walls. the plating actually traps oil between these peaks resulting in low friction. that's why you can plate an alum bore. the R1 has plated bores.
it doesn't really matter as most if not all manufactures run the bike on a dyno to test the systems. you are not the first person to start it up and put wear on the engine. the dealer probably also starts them long before you buy it.


My R6 had 50k on it when I sold it and it didn't use a drop of oil or smoke. pulls hard enough to keep up with guys on new 600's all day long. a 750 only outran me by 2 bike lenghts down the long straights. we were side by side u to about 115 and he would pull on me. on a bike with 45k miles on it. guess what break in I went with....the manual.

 

I think the biggest point from Brock and mototune is to challenge this notion that the first miles should be "easy" when there's a lot of evidence that those are the most crucial miles to ride the engine hard.

Maybe not to the extreme of holding it at redline down the autobahn for 10 miles but at the very least get close to redline a few times. The whole "take it easy the first X miles" simply seems wrong. Also I noticed the mototune page recommends changing the oil after those first 20 hard miles and then running mineral engine oil until 1500 miles.

This seems to be good advice from shops that have had a lot of hands-on experience.

 

Moto,

To reinforce your statement:

If surveyed I would bet 100% of high end performance shops do it this way. I am not aware of any of our customers that are considered "elite" shops that do not break in on the dyno hard. This would include, Tom Morgan, Eric Gohr, KWR, Yoshimura, K&T, Kohler, Jared Mees, KWS, John Hooper, KTM Orange Brigade. You get the idea.

 

I agree with chronic on this. They have pistons they have pulled that shows the difference in wear patterns and carbon buildup.

Plus the Dyno showed actual power gains from 203 to 213 HP. Compression makes a big difference in an engine making power.

I get that this is so controversial because it goes against the notion of what we have been told for years.

Our ability to embrace new concepts and ideas open-minded sets us apart from the rest.

 

The biggest thing with running it hard at the beginning of break in is you don't want to overheat it. That would be bad and what the MC manufactures want to avoid. Also I would change the oil before the recommended oil change if I was breaking it in hard like that.

 

Here you go and have fun, there are threads dating back to BC about this topic.

https://www.google.com/#q=break+in+site:www.r1-forum.com

 

break in has nothing to do with tolerances in the machining of the engine parts.
it's the piston rings and cylinder walls.

 

...and oil (preferably, rich in Nickel.

By this method


The Problem With "Easy Break In" ...
The honed crosshatch pattern in the cylinder bore acts like a file to allow the rings to wear. The rings quickly wear down the "peaks" of this roughness, regardless of how hard the engine is run.

There's a very small window of opportunity to get the rings to seal really well ... the first 20 miles !!

If the rings aren't forced against the walls soon enough, they'll use up the roughness before they fully seat. Once that happens there is no solution but to re hone the cylinders, install new rings and start over again.

!!

I am not getting into the debate about break-in procedure. This article and logic leave a few questions. Remove the words 'soon enough'. If the rings aren't forced against the walls, They'll use up the roughness before they fully seat. How?

The statement implies the rings roughness smooth the bore. That is not correct. The Nikasil smooths the rings. The premise of Nikasil is to prevent the rings from damaging the bore.

The 'roughness' is measurable. Contact is required to abrade the mating surface. Contact is friction. Friction causes heat. Stick with me. Two things happening at the same time to 'seat' the rings. Removal of 'high' spots through mechanical process (abrasion) and, a molecular change of the metal on the face of the ring. Kinda like buffing paint. Rubbing compound makes really small scratches and the heat helps the clear blend and smooth.

Every motor, Every single one I have ever dynoed. Gets one heat cycle and one cam break-in. Or two heat cycles for two strokes. The motor is then 'pulled' to produce the numbers for PEAK HP & Torque. New motors are not treated gingerly.

I left a lot out but, I don't want to bore anyone. I know the debate will continue about 'proper' break-in until definitive, quantifible data can be produced. I don't foresee that happening as the cost on a large scale has few returns. Liability is the only reason this debate exists.

Let him with ears, hear.

rodney

 

I've only ever bought two bikes brand-new, and each time I had them broken in on a dyno at a performance shop. Worked out great for me in those cases, so that's probly what I'll keep doing with any other new bikes I'll ever buy.

My vote goes for the dyno method.

 

Nissan seems to believe in the hard break in philosophy as well. According the the National Geographic documentary @ 24:35, Nissan breaks in all of their GTR engines on a dyno for the first 60mins and provides an HP print out for each customer. This means each engine is taken to its maximum within the first hour of starting up. You can also see @ 40:00 of the video that once the car is assembled there is a small team of 10 very luck technicians who's sole job is to drive each GTR hard to ensure that each GTR is fully bedded in and ready to hit the track.

If Nissan performs this special treatment on all of their $100k+ 600+hp flagship cars then that's good enough reason for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQMF2CpLKPg