whats the best way to run a car in and any tips

[dale325i]

my 2.7 should be ready in a few weeks, can anyone tell whats the best way to run a car in, how many miles should you have to do, whats the best way to clock the miles up, drive to scotland and back or not. cheers in advance

[dale325i]

this is a reply from jhonno, cheers, i put it up here as i didnt want to walk all over templ8se30 2.7 thread.

this method has been recommended and i've seen it work on several cars.. one of which is running 250psi compression across all cylinders now!!

i used the american method as per "4 stroke performance tuning".

it consisted of running the engine up to temp, getting onto a dual carriageway or motorway, then selecting a high gear like 4th or 5th, accelerating hard at low rpm up to about 5500rpm, then snapping the throttle shut and coasting down to 2k ish. repeating that 15 to 20 times, then changing the oil and filter at about 25 miles. then another 300 miles on the second oil, varying the revs and engine loads all the time (still keeping it below 80% of the max revs), at 300 miles another better quality oil and filter change, then more variable revs and engine loads up to 700 miles ish. at that point i did the final oil change to the day to day oil.

oil schedule was

0-25 miles - cheapo halfords mineral oil
25-300 - cheapo halfords mineral oil
300-700 - better quality mineral oil like castrol GTX
700- mobil1 0w40 fully synthetic.

the idea of the above method is to work the engine hard without stressing it too much (high revs). the full throttle at low rpm maxes out the cylinder pressures and drives the piston rings into the cylinder walls (helping them bed in), then the snap throttle creates a large vacuum in the cylinder drawing up extra oil for lubrication. the 25-300 mile period, lots of stop start, varying engine loads and rpm working the engine and helping to stop the bores glazing, but again, not stressing it. the first 25 is the most critical, and the 25-300 would ideally be done in one sitting. its allot of miles and you cant really just drive to scotland and back at 4000rpm all the way, need to work the engine (without revving high), lots of a and b road stuff.

Worked well on my engine, but it does get a few backs up with traditionalists who prefer the Ԛ“drive like a granddad for 1000 milesԚâ€a version.
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[Jhonno]

No worries

[Andy_magic]

I'm with the DONT drive it like a grandad school.

My own personal rule of thumb is to use upto 75% throttle and 75% RPM.

Basically this makes the rings bed in nicely to the bores etc without trashing mains/big ends etc.

I would be gentle with it while it warms up though, the first 20 minutes of use will determine the rest of the engines life.

There are some interesting articles out on the net about running engines in.

I have used this 75/75 method on all types of engines, from RC cars to formula V racing cars. Works well on Moto X bikes too.

[Borderbmw]

There's many different techniques for running in,i tend to use the" drive normally but rev the tits off it,and dont let the engine labour in too higher gear,and increase the rev limit every 300 miles or so,starting around a max of 2750ish,and dont put super spec synthetic in from the start,begin on a reasonable mineral oil,change oil and filter at 500 miles,then again at 750(same mineral oil),then all being well change oil and filter to good quality semi-synthetic at about 1200 miles,then to your preferred oil at 2000 miles,this should give the rings etc a good change to bed in.
or you could do what my mate did with a 1430cc mini engine i built him,got to the first semi-synthetic change and promptly revved it to 7000rpm and turned it into an expensive paperweight! twat!!