Running in a motor. opinions?

[Aust162]

Hi there, at the moment i have done 700kms on my new motor (gen2 3sgte). Im using a single weight 30 mineral oil. in the 700kms i havnt changed the oil yet, or revved the motor over 4500rpm.i have been putting the car under load up hills etc.Im running low boost (7psi).

I have burnt off about 500mls of oil. is this normal?
Also i have an aftermarket ecu to put in, atm i'm running the factory ecu. i was told it would be good to swap to the new ecu now and to lean the mixtures out to help the engine seal better. because the factory ecu is making the motor run really rich (as per normal). i was also told to not let the crankcase breather blow oil back into the intake.so im setting up a temperary catch can.

Does this all sound reasonable?should i stay running the toyota ecu, and change later on?(that was my orig plan)

thanks

[river]

Hi,

This topic has been discussed previously. For various opinions please check http://www.toymods.net/forums/showth...ght=%22running

seeyuzz
river

[Aust162]

Thanks for that, but none of it specifically answers any of my questions. i know the topic has been covered alot, and there a quite a few opposing views.

I'd like to know: is oil burning common during running in?whats a normal amount to burn? 100mls - 1 litre.?
The catch can idea. how exactly does it work/benefit?
Changing of the ecu?Running lean, that makes the engine hotter. this helps it to seal?

Is this all VITAL to make my engine run in?becuase going by the current oil cunsumption, they suggest that it hasnt run it yet...

[camrygt?]

In my opinion, keep the standard ecu for now it won't be to rich at all under light to medium loads. Being a bit leaner on boost will not improve the way your motor runs in.

Aftermarket computers unless tuned correctly will do more harm to your motor than good, and if you want to take it easy on your motor for a while then you would need to get the computer tuned again once run in.

The oil usage is probably normal. In my experience a motor that is driven gently especially in the first 200km will use a bit of oil for a while. Generally we dyno tune the motors after about 100km but we don't rev them right out or run more than about 10psi. This seems to "bed them in" nicely and they don't burn oil.
If the car has an aftermarket ecu we drive the first 100km or so with a wideband o2 in the exhaust and keep an eye on the tune as we go. Some ecus have terrible base maps even to point where they put in less fuel as the motor comes on boost and lean it out for you..terrific

I don't really see how the catch can would help, maybe help keep carbon build up out of your motor.

Change your oil and filter around the 500 -1000 km mark as they will be full of metal

[Aust162]

thanks for that camrygt. just what i was after +1 to you.

i'm also wanting to avoid the 2nd tune if its not so neccessary, but at the same time i dont want to jeopardise the new motor in anyway... i've spent too much time, effort and money on this.

Im not sure if the rings have bed-in yet. it doesnt seem to blow any blue smoke at all. only black puffs, i havnt revved it up yet though so it might, not sure.

The gen2 ecu' s run really rich on boost right?thats what i've heard, but alot of people must have run-in their rebuilt engines on stock ecu's. not many people have aftermarket ones, so it must be able to be safe to run-in on..surely.

when i mean rich, when my car starts up in the morning i let it idle for about 40sec-1min and it leaves a patch of soot on the driveway. its has Always done this from day one. before and after the rebuild. thats to do with the cold sttart injector i'm guessing, this might not determain what the car is like on cruise or wot.

Anyways this thing has got me stressing, i dont want the motor to end up smoking and to chew excessive oil every week

[oldcorollas]

there is also recent thread (current) on performance forums.
general consensus is that unless you are running cast iron rings, then giving it a bit of a hiding (as per motoman?) is about the best way.

[Aust162]

it has acl forged piston and rings. would they be chromolly, or moly..something?

[camrygt?]

the soot on your driveway is from the engine making water as a by product of combusion as all petrol motors do, but because you exhaust is cold it doesn't stay vaporised so it forms a liquid and washers carbon out with it. This is normal and doesn't neccesarily mean the motor is running rich.
An aftermarket ecu requires a lot of playing with the warmup and cold start and it is difficult to get them even as good as standard let alone better.

as oldcorollas said don't be to gentle with it especially after 700kms, a few spirited drives with more revs than you would cruise at and under load should help it bed-in. 10 psi and no higher than about 6000 shouldn't hurt anything, gen 2 ecus arn't that rich under 10psi boost and being a touch rich certainly won't hurt for now.

as i said earlier if it was one of our customers cars it would have had 3 hours of dyno tuning by now and be under fairly high load/rpm for most of it (don't go nuts though)

[ghost]

I would think that running it lean would be a very bad thing to do, especially when running in! What is the logic behind this?
Also most car will run a bit rich on startup because the ECU is designed to behave this way until the motor is warm. Not plumes of black smoke mind you, just a small amount of soot. Both my toyotas do this and both run factory ECU.

[oldcorollas]

as far as the rich when warming up thing goes.. motors just seem to need it.
when tuning mine by hand, it just idled and ran better with a certain amount of enrichment when cold....

as for rich/lean when running in.... too rich will wash the oil off the bores, and that can make wear occur too quickly, especially when you are using a poor oil.

[sam-131]

wtf 700ks and you think it's not run in
this is how you run engines in weather it be 2 stroke,4stroke,rotary what have you

1st let the engine warm up to running temp say 5-10 mins on idle

2nd find a road with a decent straight say 200-500ms long

3rd go up and down that road crusing go threw all the gears not over reving it but not pussy footing it either

4th now that you have gorne up and down that road you will do the same thing but this time shift threw all the gears like they should be aka drive it like you stole it

5th after your gorne up and down for the 2nd time let the enigne idle for a good 5-10mins then turn it off and let it cool down and after it's cold start her up agen and let it warm up to running themp and your done shes run in


now befor yous go off and say oh wow the book told me this the book told me that well let me tell you that i have run in all of my race moties and all of my cars in like this and never had a problem i was told this my old man and my good friend and my boss who are all engine machinist's i have heard of and seen with my own eyes drag cars from v8's to 4 cyclinder turbo's to circuit racing lotus's run in this way

so yeh i think thats that

[TurboRA28]

I am a big fan of flogging the engine from day 1.

Real life senario.. I built my 3tgte, pussied around in it, spend a 1000km with low revs and load. Just a lot of freeway driving. Seems this was the old skool idea of running an engine in.

It always used oil..

After 30,000km I rebuilt it again.. This time, flogged the shit out of it from day one. Never used a drop of oil!

Cheers
Joel

[Aust162]

in that 1st 1000kms did it use oil or smoke? mine doesnt seem to smoke at all, but it has used about 500mls of oil.
The oil consumption is worrying me. and i've put it under a fair bit of load. foot to the floor almost all the time. i just havnt let it revv up of 4.5k

Did you dump the oil before the 1st 1000kms?it running the sae30 valv oil, maybe its just that shite burning, becuase it crap. dunno

sam-131-thanks for that, although i didnt understand your writing very well..

[oldcorollas]

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

Q: What's the third most common cause of engine problems ???
A: Not changing the oil soon enough after the engine is first run !!

Change Your Oil Right Away !!
The best thing you can do for your engine is to change your oil and filter after the first 20 miles. Most of the wearing in process happens immediately, creating a lot of metal in the oil. Plus, the amount of leftover machining chips and other crud left behind in the manufacturing process is simply amazing !! You want to flush that stuff out before it gets recycled and embedded in the transmission gears, and oil pump etc...

Why do the manufacturers recommend waiting until 600 miles to
flush out all the loose metal ???

This is a good question ...



3 more words on break- in:
NO SYNTHETIC OIL !!

Use Valvoline, Halvoline, or similar 10 w 40 Petroleum Car Oil for at least
2 full days of hard racing or 1,500 miles of street riding / driving.
After that use your favorite brand of oil.

[Youngy]

I have to agree with Joel, Sam and old rollas. Bedding in a motor does not take that long at all. Any motor (except maybe a cathedral motor in a super tanker.......... ).

The same thought process can be applied to warming up a motor. You don't really have to wait a minute or two before you rev it right out. Ever seen the guys warm up there bikes at the track?

They start up, one or two revs then full throttle until it comes on the pipe correctly - you can hear the sound change.

Definitely dump the oil\filter as soon as you can.

[jeffro ra28]

At idle there is insufficient oil-throw off to lubricate the pistons, rings and camshaft lobes when the oil is cold and prolonged idling should therefore be avoided.
In the initial driving period u should accelerate the car several times from 60 to 80 kmph in top gear at full thorttle(automatics in 2nd at lower speed). this will provide sufficient gas loading to build up pressure behind the top rings to ensure gas tight sealing against the cylinder walls.
Prolonged high speeds and low speed lugging should be avoided.
To much of running constant speeds is bad for bedding-in.

"Home Brand" actually make engine oil, hehe best run in oil out.

http://forums.toymods.org.au/index.p...3694msg_603694

[ghost]

I've done just over 100km on my new engine and haven't gone over 3500rpm or boosted over a few psi. I'm using Valvoline running in oil and was considering running for at least 500km before changing, but I may consider replacing the oil and filter much sooner.

I have heard that varying the rpm was the most important thing to do rather than sitting on steady rpm for ages. I remember being told by my mechanic to drive my RX7 this way for a while until it was run in. Hope I havn't been too easy on my motor and glazed the bore!?!
Hopefully not!
My neighbour freaked out at the smoke that it produced for the first two minutes and kept saying there was a problem and it was a pity my other neighbour who is a mobile mechanic wasn't home as he could tell me what to do. He almost had me panicking but I kept telling myself that this was normal and it would go away. And it did much to my relief.

Any other wise experienced engine builders able to confirm this rough break in method?

[Starfire]

You can never change your engine oil too often. Ever. When running in an engine you could change it every day if you like (probably not required though) but after 20km or so is reasonable.

The two main points to running in an engine is bedding in the piston rings and work hardening/bedding in the camshafts.

The rings benefit the most from being thrashed pretty hard, but not at constant revs. Motorsport (motorkhana, track day, hills thrash) are the best way to get that done. The quicker you do it the better the seal and less oil you will use.

The camshafts benefit the most from working in the middle of the rev range. At low rpm the load on the tip of the cam lobe is the highest with oil pressure low. At high rpm the face of the cam lobe cops a hiding. Mid range evens out the loads as much as possible.

If you are building a basically stock motor the run in is pretty standard. Baby it for a little bit (keep the revs above 2000 and avoid idling though) for the first few km. Change the oil. Give it a bit of a thrash, again varying the revs and avoiding redline and idle.

For a monster with big cams and crazy compression and/or boost the best option is to run it in in stages.

Put a stock head on your new bottom end. Run that in with a pretty hard thrashing. Change the head over to your new one. If you have a really crazy cam use stock valve springs as these will reduce the load on the new cam till it has had a chance to work harden. Once that has bedded in for a few hundred km put in the hardcore springs. Wind up the boost

Aust: if you are concerned by oil usage change your oil and then keep an eye on how much it is using in the next few days. It is normal for an internal combustion engine to use a fair bit of oil during the early part of run in when the rings arent sealing with the cyl. correctly. All engines use some oil as part of their normal operation.

If you still think that your engine is using too much oil take it back to the place that put it toghether or get it compression tested.

Cheers,

Terry

[JustCallMeOrlando]

as far as the rich when warming up thing goes.. motors just seem to need it.
when tuning mine by hand, it just idled and ran better with a certain amount of enrichment when cold....

As far as I know this is due to not enough of the fuel vaporizing and burning correctly when the engine is not up to temperature, so you add some fuel so even though the ratio remains roughly the same, the right amount of combustible fuel is still delivered.

[Starfire]

As far as I know this is due to not enough of the fuel vaporizing and burning correctly when the engine is not up to temperature, so you add some fuel so even though the ratio remains roughly the same, the right amount of combustible fuel is still delivered.

Same principal as a choke on a carbie.