To break in or not to break in?

D15, D16, D17 and Mini-Me swaps
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To break in or not to break in?

By Honda4life
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 12:53 pm #224031 Ok here what's going. My mini me finally took a dump and so I bought a d16z6 motor for my si hatch off craigslist for $200. With people being shady and what not I decided to do a complete rebuild for the z6 because the milage was unknown when I bought it. So I sent the motor to a machine shop to get bored 20 over, hot tanked, resized the rods, got a oem rebuild kit which came with new oil pump, new pistons, and the other bits and pieces. Ok anyway my motor is done being rebuilt and just needs to be put into my car and I'm getting mixed answers to whether I need to break the motor in or not. I always thought that when you get a new motor or rebuild it that it needs to be broken in. Eventually I'm gonna go turbo sometime next year and I just wanna make sure my motor will handle ok and if I should break it in or not. How many miles should I go to break it in if I need to break it in and how do you break in a rebuilt motor? Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated.
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By poorman type-r
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 1:33 pm #224033 Yes it needs to be broken in. There are two ways, 1. Baby the motor for a 1000 miles, while babying it though progressively take it to higher rpm's. So start out barely taking it passed 3k and a few hundred miles go a bit higher etc. 2. Take it on the freeway and go about 40 in 3rd gear, get some distance away from traffic and top out 3rd gear and let it deaccelerate by itself back down to 35-40 and do the same thing again, and the motor is broken in. Remember the rule though if you go the second route, if it breaks it was going to break later on down the road so might as well find out in the beginning. A lot of people do the second option though, and nothing breaks, so its up to you. Hope this helps.

Anybody feel free to correct me, but I have read how to break in motors so im familiar with it. Good luck!!! :thumb:

By Clarkypoo
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 1:59 pm #224036 I thought you would want to break it in like if you bought a brand new car by zipping around to wear off the coatings in the engine and then changing the oil after about 50 miles to get all that junk out.
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By poorman type-r
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 3:11 pm #224050 ^^ no, what you are suppose to do is when it first cranks over and starts you let it idle for ten minutes and then change the oil, after that I believe its after 100-150 miles you are suppose to change it again and then after every 250 miles until you get to 1000 miles then you can start doing it every few months or whatever you normally do.
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By berg89
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:30 pm #224061 When you drop your motor in an getting ready to fire it it up for the first time be sure to disconnect your wires to yiour dizzy. so you can turn you motor over a couple time to let the mitor distribute oil through the motor. Then connect your dizzy an see if it fires up. After its running be sure to let the motor idle until the temp gauge is at the warmest spot. make sure theres no cel's. If you go the secound option be sure to do what -poorman type-r- said about staying in third gear an reving then decreasing. DO NOT RED LINE IT! 5 an a half or six should be goog enough to be reving at. Do it for twenty miles. After that you can start shifting through gears. Just be easy on it. Then yes dont forget to change your oil. I change mine at miles 50, 150, 250. A megnetic plug also gives u a lil help by catching all the fine parts. One lil thing i do, is when i do the secound oil change i pull the pan an wash it out. an check the oil pump filter to make sure its clear. You dont need to pull the pan, its just a habbit i like doing to double check things. Good luck on the build.
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By Honda4life
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 9:14 pm #224097 Thanks guys for the help. I think I'll go with what poor man type r is saying and go route number 2. I plan to only boost 6-8 pounds and even eventually go with a cam and build the head. Yea I know it's only a single cam, but I like to be different. I'm sure ppl are wondering why I'm putting all this money into a single cam. Simple answer is just tryna be different this time around since I already went b series with my old ej coupe
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By Eg6H2D
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 9:28 pm #224101 Hold Up!!! EG^b20R ghot an answer!!!! :lol:

babying isnt key.

i have to set those rings properly!!!! and yes the first 20 miles are the most crutial on doing so!! the only way to get those rings to set properly so you wont get any blow by which in turn results in oil burning is putting load on teh engine. and what best was to force an engine but to take it up hill if you can..


Here it is..

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.
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By poorman type-r
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 9:53 pm #224109 ^^ Learned something new :thumb:
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By Eg6H2D
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 9:54 pm #224110
poorman type-r wrote:^^ Learned something new :thumb:


:thumb: .. Even tho yours was ok too but there is always a crucial point in everyhting motor wise. and of course we wont know until we are shown. I was amazed when i was told this..

and what better source to get th info from but the ones that actually build , break in and race motors and reliable ones at that..

:thumb:
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By {ikon}EM1
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:42 pm #224116 U can also take it to the dyno and strap it down to see the numbers... and while ur at it just tell the tuner to break it in till it hits 1000 miles.... :thumb:

That's what I did when I got my lsv put in my car with 0 miles on dat bit... :lol:
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By Honda4life
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:20 pm #224119 So eg6 b20R, what your saying in a nut shell is run it hard and get into v-tec? Or run it a lil hard for the first 20 miles? What your saying makes sense and I just learned a lot, so thanks. So beat possible way to break it in?
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By Eg6H2D
- Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:50 pm #224125
Honda4life wrote:So eg6 b20R, what your saying in a nut shell is run it hard and get into v-tec? Or run it a lil hard for the first 20 miles? What your saying makes sense and I just learned a lot, so thanks. So beat possible way to break it in?


Dont beat but push . dont be scared to give it gas for the first 20miles u put on it. it's all about load. load= full throttle.
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By poorman type-r
- Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:26 am #224128 Why not take it to redline?
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By 92lhdsiconvo
- Tue Nov 23, 2010 2:35 am #224143 run it hard from idle to rev limiter. if it is going to came apart it will do so. I am a machinest by trade and was tought by Dan Fererri how to build and run engines. The most crucial thing to any engine build is getting the foreign materials out so change the oil often for the first 500 miles or so but dont baby an engine that was built to run. The second most important thing to a honda build is to re-torque the cylinder head. The way i brike in my si eating d15b2 ed sedan was to disconnect the dizzy and crank the engine to build oil pressure. Then i connected the dizzy and started it to check timing. Once timing was dailed in i revved it to three and dumped the clutch until rev limiter. I then drove it around the block a couple of times. Then i launched for a quick quarter then took it back to my shop and let it cool over night. In the morning i changed the oil and pulled the valve cover off barely loosened the head bolts in sequense (not even a quarter turn). Re-torqued the head and drove for years until finally needed to do the head gasket. Raced many si crx's and ex eg's in the two years and after that did the multi point injection swap but now im a happy eg hatch owner.
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