embarrassingly bad mileage... REALLY

[yopauly]

Originally Posted by Spades

ok, well, your old school v8s should actually be changed in a few minutes after running. older engine tolerances arent as exact as the new engines, meaning that when the piston rings are grinding up against the rough cylinder wall edges, they are in the process of "seating". not only are they forming a seal, they are creating alot of very small metal shavings in the process.

with that being said, on alot of high performance engines i have helped build, we have fired them up, and changed the oil after running for 10 or so minutes, changed the oil, then, ran oil in it for a while during a hard run(if its in the car, take it out and run it through the RPM ranges) and then change it again.

using synthetic oil on ANY engine near the break in point is not a good idea, the molecules in most synthetics are so fine, that sometimes a proper ring seat is never achived because there isnt enough friction. as time goes on, more and more auto manufactures claim their engines do not need break in time, and that synthetics are ok from the start.

my personal recommendation for breaking a new car in...

run the factory oil in it for a day. drive the car through all the RPM ranges, even close to redline. dont push the car hard up hills or be abusive, but never granny it. run it through all the ranges at a steady pace, and never keep the RPM's the same for a extended period(if you are commuting, bounce between 3rd, 4th, and 5th if its a manual). change the oil with a high quality petrolium based motor oil of the vehicles recommended weight. run that oil for a few hundred miles and replace it with the same stuff.

if you plan to run synthetics, start running a blend no sooner than 5,000 miles. for the first few thousand miles, change the oil every 3k, sooner if you are doing city driving, lots of idleing, or start up-shut off driving.

after at least 10k, start with synthetics. you can start stretching the oil change intervals out if you have a high grade synthetic.

personally, i go:

100 miles or less(regular oil change)
300-500 miles(regular oil change)
3000 miles (regular oil change)
6000 miles (synthetic blend oil change)
every 3k a syn blend oil change(i do mostly city driving).

this is a VERY excessive and overly carefull break in process. you dont have to do it, you dont really need to do it. but, if you want to do things perfectly and you want to keep the car till it dies, its a few more bucks on oil changes, but its the obsessive way to do it.

p.s. forgot to mention. the side affect to piston rings not seating is oil consumption at later milage. most imports make it alot of miles before oil burning regardless of how they were maintained...im just obsessive compulsive on the proper break in stuff,lol.

Hey Spades. You are correct. Its been so long I forgot. I just knew it was pretty dang quickly.

Now something else. This is soooooo very important. Keep an eye on your air pressure. I forgot to follow my own rule of max pressure minus 2-5 psi. I hadnt checked it in like 3 or so months. Down to 28 I think right before we went on a vacation. I air them up and for the first time EVER I ALMOST broke 40!!! 39.11 with almost no town driving. I wanted to do NO town driving and actually put more than 170 highway miles on it before I checked but it was just a minor vacation.