Running In A Pinto

[Guest ant.b]

my newly built 2.1 is now back on the road , been takin it easy so far , so do i need to be carfull with it for so many miles or can i just drive as normal?? (fast)

cheers ant

[Guest MrSandman]

Run it in....

 

You may well get people tell you that they don't run racing engines in but they do. Generally.

 

There will be minor imperfections in the piston/bore bearing/journal surfaces and these will need to bed in without crating too much localised overheating.

 

How long is very much a mute point. I used to run very high revving kart engines (18000 rpm) and would run them in for 1/2 hour. But then a rebuild was every 4 hours.

 

A car engine needs to last much longer so should be treated more carefully.

 

What hurts engines is high load as well as high RPM. I would suggest progressively increasing performance, initially in short bursts. I would probably do about 300 miles. over several runs, of gradually increasing revs and load from 4000 to 6000 but would still only give short bursts of high revs for another 200 miles.

 

I don't run my company car engines in but then I don't care if they go POP. None have yet!!

 

All just my opinion of course.

[Guest chris brown]

or can i just drive as normal??

You can but IMHO it is always better to take it steady for the first few hours (10 to 15) of running let it worm up under gentle driving and even when at normal operating temp don’t give it full boot but accelerate gently. Revs are not normally a problem but that doesn’t mean hit peak revs on every change its heavy loads on a new/recon motor that does the harm. Don’t forget to change the oil and filter when this has been completed. Then get out there and give it some and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

[Guest salty_monk]

I've read some stuff that says you get more power out of an engine if you abuse it straight after a rebuild, running it in doesn't get the rings etc to seal so well but.... it caused an uproar last time it was posted on a forum so may do the same here

[Guest paul thompson]

When I had my engine rebuilt by Ford engine specialists SPecialsed Engines in Thurrock I asked the same question. He told me to take it easy till it had warmed up and then for the first 1 or 200 miles don't sit at the same revs for more than a minute or two and by then it should be fine. so run it in but don't treat it like it's made of glass, get it warm nice and steadily and gradually increase the revs but don't sit on the motorway at 65 for half an hour until you have done a couple of hundred miles.

Like the previous post, i have never run in a copany car engine and have done over 80,000 in all of them and never had a problem (except for my alfa which was allways running out of oil, good reason for the big ends to go after 45,000). A mechanic freind of mine who used to mechanic for a historic race team also says don't bother running them in for long, about 20 laps usally was enough for them and that was half a practice session. The pistons havea scraper ring, that does the job of taking off the tips of any imperfections of the cylinder machining but if you had the cylinders properly lapped, there should not be any anyhow. The bearings are made by much better processes thatn they used to be and should be good enough right out of the box. (they used to have to be scraped to get the best fit for racing engines and not for production ones, that's why you had to run in. Not these days even if teh engine is old.

My tuppence for what it's worth.

[Guest Petemate]

My 2 pennorth. Has anyone seen new cars at the factories, on the rollers? I think you will find that most of the running-in is done already before Joe Public takes delivery of his/her pride & joy. Then he/she goes on to treat the car oh so gently for several hundred miles.....!!!

Seriously, as Chris and the others point out, gentle running without excess loading and avoiding high revs for a few hundred miles, working slowly up, does the trick. Also, a re-built engine has had no running whatever, where the "new" cars' engines have at least had bench running at the engines branch and the afore-mentioned roller tests.

It is quite something to be sat in a Rover 75 on the rollers at around 90mph......

Pete

[Guest AWhite]

Someone told me that i should just run the engine in with cheapo 2.99 oil because its anti wear properties are not so good. Then after 50 miles or so do an oil and oil filter change.

 

Andy

[Guest Peejay]

Someone told me that i should just run the engine in with cheapo 2.99 oil because its anti wear properties are not so good. Then after 50 miles or so do an oil and oil filter change.

 

Andy

Someone told me that i should just run the engine in with cheapo 2.99 oil because its anti wear properties are not so good. Then after 50 miles or so do an oil and oil filter change.

That's pretty much so, though I'd give it a bit firther than 50 miles. No point in putting a top notch oil in that's supposed to make your engine run forever, when your trying to knock the ' sharp edges off'

 

I remember taking the head off an Astra GTE engine a few years back that had done about 10,000 miles and you could still see the honing marks in the bores!!!

 

Pete