Planning to break in by running it for 20 min at 2500 rpm then driving it for 500 miles with amsoil break in oil. Any suggestions on the break in?

 

The 2500 rpm for 20 minutes is only necessary for flat tappet cams. Just get it running and take it for a drive. Put a load on it and seat the rings

 

What I like to do is after the initial run it, take it out to an empty road. Put it in second. go 20-50 at half to 3/4 throttle, then let off and let it coast down to 20. Do this about 12-15 times. Take it back and change the oil. That'll help seat the rings nicely.

 

Agree with Darth, you want changing rpm, not constant, and you want acceleration and decelleration.

 

Thanks for your input, what do you consider "initial run?"

 

Use good break in oil, start it, very oil pressure, go beat the **** out of it for 15-20 minutes.

Come back, change the filter, add some oil. Continue to beat the **** out of it.

 

This isn't 100% exact, but some variation of this will do it. Some people break them in for 5000 miles and some take em off the lot and beat the hell out of them immediately. And honestly I've seen both of those ways work fine and everything in between.. But here's kinda what I do with a fresh motor.


Start it and let it idle and keep an eye on the gauges. Let it get up to temp then shut it down and let it cool off.

Check all fluid levels especially coolant.

Start it and let it run again and get up to temp and shut it down and let it cool.

Check levels again and condition of oil.

Take it for a drive, giving it medium/moderate throttle, but not heavy, accelerating up to some speed then let off and coast a bit, then accelerate again ( you want to give it light to medium throttle and accelerate through a gear for a little bit of time like 2nd or 3rd) then let off and coast down to speed. Repeat this many times for 20 minutes or so. It's not an exact science here.

Change the oil and check all fluids.

Take it out and drive it a little harder and beat on it a few times then do some regular light driving with medium accelerating and just drive it around. Take home let it cool check everything over.

Drive 500 or so miles watching the oil and gauges and beating on it some but not necessarily at all times, even though some people do at this point and it works out fine, I don't personally.

Change oil and beat the dog **** out of it whenever you want.

I don't ever use break in oil, and engines off the lot don't come with it and they break in fine. I have nothing against someone using it, but I don't. And honestly, the only reason I don't is because I never have.. we've always had regular oil in the shop ready to go so I've always poured that in it, never seen or heard of it being a problem to use regular oil unless you had flat tappet lifters. You don't.

 

You make a good point 00,

maybe the discrepancy is the difference between race motors and daily drivers. Example, factory motor has low tension rings, a known good safe tune, not much compression, not very high specific output, and just daily driving keeps it in all kinds of RPM ranges, so it does just fine.

Race motor, you'll never see 5000 miles, the rings are stouter, compression is higher, specific output is higher, etc. No choice but to force the rings to seat as soon as possible.

 

Just make sure u change the oil at a max of 1000 miles. I prefer 300-500 on a reg car engine

 

On a new motor? Fixed for you.

 

I start with the cheapest SAE oil I can find in Wally World, and a quality filter. Add a bottle (or two) of break in additive. I only use water in the cooling system to start with. If there's a leak it's easy to clean up and saves a little money.

Start it up and let "idle" at various rpm's in the garage. Check for leaks, check mixture, etc. Shut it down, and let it cool off. Go around and check everything again. Do that 3-4 times in the garage.

Change the oil, using the same combo.

Run it through a few heat cycles on the street as said above; acceleration and closed throttle deceleration. Cruise at various RPM's.

If everything else looks good, change the oil again using your favorite quality oil and filter. A zinc/break in additive won't hurt anything. Be sure and add anti-freeze and a bottle of surfactant. Drive it like you stole it.

At each oil change, collect a mid stream sample, and look for gold.

 

I fired up the Ws6 today and it started fine. I did the 2 cycle heat and cool then went out to like a 20 mile drive and would let it go up to 70 at one point and bring it down to 20 down shifting as I went to keep rpms healthy.

i then came back and changed the oil and I am now on the 500 mile break in stage.

I am currently going through 2 issues:

1. Car sometimes starts fine at first and others the Rpms are all over the place and I have to accelerate to keep it on. After about 20 seconds of the car being on it stays idling at 900-1000 rpm for as long as I let it. I have a feeling it might need the Tune ASAP, I’m lucky it still even turns on I’ve heard some only turn on once and never again until it’s tuned.

2. The battery gauge goes under 13 volts and at one point it died at a red light because it got to low. But lucky for me, it started right up after like 1 min of cussing lol.!I am currently running a 600 watt amp to the composition speakers and have the big three upgrade and just added the Hotwire kit to the fuel pump. I’m thinking of ordering a new High Output alternator, like a 160 amp one; would that be safe? Has any one had this issue after Hotwire install?

and definitely regretting the 6 pluck clutch right now, maybe after the tune it will get better.

 

A simple thing you can do to help it out until you get it to a tuner -- unplug the TPS. Adjust the screw one full turn to crack the blade open a bit more. Key one for sixty seconds, but don't start the car. Key off, plug in TPS. That should rezero your throttle position a bit more open to help it hold idle. If it won't settle down, then close the blade a quarter turn at a time, resetting the TPS each time, until you find the right blend of enough start up air and not too much for warm idle.

I run a powermaster XPS 160 amp. Perfectly safe. The battery only drains what it needs. In other words, the alternator doesn't force 160 amps down the car's throat. I also run a hotwire kit.
6-puck clutches don't generally like to be slipped. The more you beat the **** out of it the better it drives. Try to be all smooth about it, and it'll start to chatter. Tune won't help it. But sometimes, about 500 miles and some heat cycling will help it smooth out. That's been my experience. I learned a while back I'd much rather have a twin disc than a really strong grip strength single disc.

 

Try this for your charging problems

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...failure-s.html

 

Thank you for your response, VERY HELPFUL.

I did the TPS reset and idle is super better.

I also double checked the battery and one of the post was loose. I guess with the vibrations.

Now the issue is piston 3 spark plug wire keeps hitting on the header, I ripped right threw the protector and messing up the wire. I’m on my third wire. Thinking of cutting it to avoid contact.

As for the clutch I’m getting the hang of it.

I really appreciate it.

 

This is the view from the headers.
I am suspecting I have plugged cats since I still have them.

 

Dude, is that your headers glowing? That's a bunch of no bueno there. You would have plugged cats, but that'd be easy to test - unbolt the exhaust and see if it still glows. If not you got some major tuning to do.

 

Yea, they are. That’s what I have planned. I was recommended to try out that cat cleaner stuff but giving the fact that it’s a fresh motor still in the process of breaking in; I’d rather lift it and do the work..

 

Now that I’m reflecting on the build too, I used locktite on the knock sensors that might be messing with the timing but car is idles fine after tps reset. And for the whole entire build I started in feb I left the cats laying around uncovered.

 

As stated above, first check needs to be the cats. They could have been pristine going in, but on a cammed car, they can still plug fast.

I have seen glowing headers from the tune being too rich or too lean at idle and from idle spark being too low. Now, if it's idling along at 16 degrees, which is lower than stock, that's not the issue. More like if it's running along at 5 degrees, with a slow burn, you'll get secondary combustion in the headers. If you have the ability to log it and post a tune, please do so.