maybe teh whole break in thing is so that people don't rev it up and misshift and blow the engine. 600 miles would give you plenty of practice to get used to the close shift gates.

 

EXACTLY! That's how you break-in a car properly. And see what happens? You have more HP than others who "baby" their car for the break in. This is another testimonial that shows that Motoman's recommendations for break-in really do work! And it will INCREASE the life and reliability of your engine!!!!!!!!!

I've broken in cars the "easy" way and the "hard way," and the so called "hard way" did give my car more power and no problems with reliability or quality. I will never be afraid to drive the car the way it is meant to be driven when breaking it in. Sure, you don't need to redline the car right away, but it is important to go through the gears, let it rev, and give it all sorts of driving situations from accelerating to decelerating and even some good braking and cornering.

Listen to Motoman. It may be "unconventional," but it does work!

And remember, he doesn't say, "redline the car and beat the shit out of it." He says to give it a lot of varied driving, go through the gears, stop and go, fast and slow and change the oil right away (no synthetic until further down the road).

 

really? What about cars that come with synthetic oil from the factory. Unless it's a diesel engine, you can use a synthetic oil on the first oil change in all modern/new cars.

Re: oil colour. That can really only tell you if the oil is doing it's job.. if it gets darker, it means that the oil is holding the contaminants in suspension as it should. But that's all it can tell you... unless you see fuel or foaming on the stick.. Otherwise to get an accurate account of what is happening in the engine you need to analyse the old oil for viscosity, flash temp, how much dirt, lead and iron is in it, how much fuel and or coolant and how much of the additive package is left.

Personally I will definitely analyze my old oil the first 2-3 times to see how it's holding up.. $40/year is a small price to pay imo to make sure everything is going well with the oil I choose, especially in such a high performance engine.

http://theoildrop.server101.com/whatisoilanalysis.htm

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by quick_lude

 

I understand.. In the olden days engines were not built to such tight tolerances and specs so there might have been some benefit to wait unitl say 10,000km before going synthetic.. Nowadays, I'd say leave the factory oil for maybe 2-3,000km since it's loaded with Molybdenum ( in Hondas at least) to help with the break in.. after that, go synthetic if you wish.

 

Yeah, that's exactly Motoman's recommendation for cars that do not use synthetic oil straight from the factory.

His break-in method involves the above-mentioned driving and changing the oil after the first 20 miles (of a brand new car - but you can also do something similar to used cars, as he mentioned in one of his newsletters). Use regular oil and wait until 3,000 miles before switching to synthetic.

His thing is that it's the first 20 miles that are the most crucial when breaking in a new car. So it's important to finish what the factory started by driving it up and down the gears and faster, slower, cornering, braking, etc. Going through the gears, revving it up (not to redline) and plenty of mixed driving to give the engine a good break in.

It really works!