Engine Break-in

I just got my car back with my new (remanufactured) engine. Any suggestions on break-in other than the Porsche recommended guideline of keeping the RPMs under 4200 for 5000 miles? Lee

Change the 0W40 to another approved weight.

I thought the remanufactured(replacement) engines did not need a break in period.

wait i don't get it i have 0w40 oil in my car did i miss something about oils or something

Just a big oil debate. Personally, I would not run 0W40 in any car unless I lived in sub zero temperatures. There is no need, whatsoever to run a 0W40, otherwise. What did you run in your first engine? That might make you think a little bit more about what oil to run. JMHO.

Hey Jim, hows the movil 1 "delvac" 5W40... can we use that in our 996?

That's a diesel oil and should not be used and since there are so many approved oils on the list, I would use one of those. However, most here know I personally recommend 15W50 in areas of the country where normal temps are above 20F or so.

And a good start would be to follow the owners manual guidelines for breaking in the engine. Personally, I like to change the initial oil and filter early in the break-in -- unles the owners manual specifically forbids it (and I ignore service advisors who advise me against it -- as long as I'm paying for the oil and filter I'll change it whenever I please), around the 1st 1000 miles. I like to change the oil at the end of the break-in time. I see no reason to treat an engine kindly for a while then start hammering on it with dirty oil and a possibly plugged oil filter (which means this dirty oil gets routed around the oil filter). (Even at the end of the break-in, I try to avoid going from mild to wild, instead preferring to take the engine to higher and higher RPMs over some length of time, that is upping the upper RPM limit I try to keep the engine under until over time I gradually have raised my self-imposed limit to redline. No matter whazt, lastly, I always ensure the engine has had plenty of time to get up to operating temperature. The engine has lots of coolant and oil and these take time to get up to temperature.) As for 0w-40 oil, I've run that in my Porsche ('02 Boxster) for almost its whole life and it just passed 163,000 miles. (It gets, besides 0w-40 oil, an oil/filter service approx. every 5000 miles.) Unless you live and use the car in an extremely hot area, or track it, there's no reason to go to 15w-50 oil and if you live where its cold one or two reasons why you shouldn't use that heavy of an oil. (A heavier oil can get hotter from excessive hydraulic friction than a lighter weight oil.) Also, what does your car's owner manual say about oil viscosity? Does it specifically recommend 152-50 oil or does it allow for w-40. BTW, I believe Porsche recently went from using 0w-40 oil to 5w-40 oil as its factory fill, so you can use 5w-40 oil if you can find it. (Dealer probably stocks it but will charge arm/leg for it. I can buy Mobil 1 0w-40 oil for around $6/quart, sometimes less on sale.) Enjoy the new engine! Sincerely, Macster.

I don't think Mobil 1 makes a 5W40 for our cars... I just checked their website and the only 5W40 listed is the Delvac for diesel motors...

I am sure I will catch hell for this - but after you spent $13K on a new motor and now have a 2 year warranty, my goal would be to make sure they end up putting in another motor under warranty before the 2 years is up. So for break-in, I say rev to 7K, start revving hard immediately after startup, and lots of double clutching. Sorry, I am pissed at PCNA for the same reason and would like to see someone make use of that second-hand warranty. Let me ask you this, now that you have spent the money, how much (short of a new motor) could PCNA have offered you to lessen the blow? Are you sour on the whole thing, or do you just chalk it up to experience and maintenace as some of the others here would have you do? Enjoy your new motor!

Macster, it seems to me that it is better not to change oil early in break-in. A new engine may produce a large number of small and big metal particles floating in the oil. The big ones could cause damage, but are caught by the filter and just sit there. The small ones (that pass through the filter) are beneficial for fine polishing of engine surfaces. An early oil change removes small particles, and now the break-in process is disrupted and/or prolonged.

The final bill came to $11,626 due mostly to a 10% discount �given� to PCA members. In my letter, e-mails and my Phone calls to Porsche I said I wasn�t asking for them to give me an engine. The point I was trying to get across was that this failure should not have happened with a car with just 69,000 miles, any car for that matter much less a Porsche and that Porsche should not profit on it. I specifically asked that I be charged at cost. I�m not bitter. Yet! I haven�t been contacted by anyone with Porsche but it has only been 11 days since my first contact and a week since they received my letter. I was told that I will get a response within 15 days of receiving a letter so I�m reserving judgment until then. Since they already got my money I doubt it but one can hope they do the right thing.

In the 996 engine Porsche put in a bypass filter to filter out the very fine particles in order to protect the Variocam Plus system. What you always want to run in an engine like the Porsche engine -- or for that matter any engine you care about -- is clean, undiluted oil of the proper type and weight. New engines shed loads of dirt. Even if the assembly is done in clean room conditions, all new castings/machined surfaces shed lots of small metal particles (or in the case of sand cast parts, sand particles...). These can (almost certainly will) overload the filter to the point it is no longer able to filter oil. To "protect" the engine there's a bypass valve that under sufficient pressure at the pressure side of the filter will open and direct oil into the main oil galleys without the benefit of any filtering. Also, those metal particles consist of various types of metal. Not all are compatible with other metals in the engine. Under high loads, high temperatures, if similar metals come into contact extreme wear -- galling -- can and will occur. Polishing works by one surface, usually the softer material, retaining the abrasive particles and abrading the harder surface. (Very hard glass/pyrex mirror blanks are fine polished and figured with the right curve by using a pitch covered tool -- the pitch soft enough to dent with your finger nail, the surface charged with a fine polishing compound.) Besides, almost no bearing surfaces wants to be super finished, with the exception of say the main and rod bearing journals, because a super fine finish here reduces friction of the hydradynamic bearing (fluid film bearing) that exists between the bearing journal and the enclosing bearing housing. The journals are finished before the crank is installed in the engine. In most cases, a certain amount of uniform roughess is desired to give places for the oil molecules to reside, so the other component as it rolls, slides or rubs across the bearing face presses upon these tiny oil molecues and thus metal to metal contact is avoided. (Dirt in the oil can take the place of these oil molecules with the result these bearing interfaces will see accelerated wear.) It is your car, your engine, and you can do with as you wish. My experience is that an early oil/filter change -- unless specifically cautioned against by the owners manual) followed by regular oil and filter changes helps prolong the useable life of the engine. It is a course of action I've followed with all my new cars (and for those older cars for which I rebuilt the engine) and one I intend to follow going forward. Sincerely, Macster.

Drive it like you stole it, and change the oil after a few hundred miles, then again at 1500 or so and carry on like normal. You want to make sure the piston rings actualy seal properly. If you baby it and drive like a grandma during the first miles, your rings won't seal properly, which means you will likely burn oil and have more blow-by gases from the cylinders getting into the inner-engine. Seal those rings and you'll have a car that uses no oil between changes, and keeps the oil in better condition also. Your engine will last longer, you'll have better compression, and hence more power.

owners manual the engine will break in very nicely. The rings are already seated when the engine comes from the factory. The ring/cylinder interface and other sliding/rubbing bearing surfaces are not quite to their optimum state though, and following the proper break in will almost certainly ensure they do obtain this state. I always cringe when someone suggests driving a new car like one stole it to do a "proper" break-in knowing that if the engine goes **** up at some point in the future the person who was advocating this type of break in will be no where to be found to help make restitution. If however, one drives the car reasonably, if anythign should happen, he can point this out to the dealership and the dealership can also verify this to some extent by querying the engine controller for details on how the engine was treated during its initial break in miles. The only time drive it like you stole applies, in my opinion, is if you did indeed steal the car... Sincerely, Macster.

My dealer and all the techs at the dealership and service manager ALL said break it in hard. I have 62k miles on the new engine, its STRONG and doesnt burn a drop of oil.....

Sorry but you are wrong about seating the rings. Following the recommendations for low rpms and such has nothing to do with the rings. The ONLY way rings can be seated properly is to have lots of pressure to force them against the cylinder walls. The rings are actually smaller diameter than the cylinder and only are fully pressed against the walls under high pressure. Low rpms and low throttle will never seat the piston rings, in any car.

That is not true.

trust the dealer for advice on how to break in an engine... Sorry, dealers know nothing about cars. Most techs (not all) are not as car savvy as one would think. Breaking in an engine hard (and your definition may be quite different from someone else's...) doesn't always result in a pile of scrap. Just because a few dodge a bullet does not ensure all will. The best advice is to follow the owners manual regarding break in. The factory has nothing to gain by artifically limiting the driver's use of his new car, so the reasoning is the break in guidelines are there for a purpose. (I note that in all long term test reports I read in various Porsche car mags the testers always follow the break in guidelines if they get a car with factory delivery miles.) The dealer will say anything to get you to buy a car, pay as much for as possible, and will not say anything that puts this possibility at risk. If you went to a dealer and during the process of buying a car asked if you could drive the car with your hair on fire he'd probably say it was ok. Sincerely, Macster.

with fresh piston/rings/cylinder bores, you can tell when the rings seat and they seat in just a few minutes of fast idle running. (Typically, the engine smooths out and the oil smoke in the exhaust drops to nothing.) Upon every compression stroke and during every power stroke the rings are forced outwards by the pressure in the chamber. What you want avoid is extremely high loads that allow the pressure to rise to extremely high levels and exert too much force on teh rings that the oil film between the ring and the cylinder wall breaks down the ring and cylinder gall. (This galling is a momentary (very brief) welding of the ring to the cylinder wall and when the weld breaks a piece of material is plucked from one or the other surface. Enough so in some cases as the piston continues decending the ring with this lump of material can gouge the cylinder wall -- which upon engine tear down are long vertical scratches or gouges in the cylinder material -- which compromises sealing from then on. In real bad cases the ring can break.) By limiting the pressure during the break in miles, the rings and cylinder (and rings a piston -- remember not only do the rings seal against the cylinder wall, but a ring face must seal against the piston groove) develop a very nice sliding bearing interface that from then on to extremely old age will resist wear and degradation given reasonable lubrication and treatment. Also, new engines typically run hot and this can put additional stress on the engine and oil and even moderately high loads can hurt the engine. Sincerely, Macster.

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

You get nowhere near the pressure and heat you need to properly seat and maintain as minimum of clearances as possible by idleing around with your engine. Redline and back is the proper way.. You DO NOT want to limit pressure during breakin!!!!!! 1. Always bring engine to FULL operating temperature before high revs. 2. Drive the car easy for the first 10 miles or so, varying the rpm's from 2,000 - 5,000. 3. Then, start bringing the engine up to maximum rpm's and letting the engine bring the revs back down by coasting in gear. 4. Repeat several times in order to create maximum heat in the cylinders. 5. Drive around at lower RPM's for several more miles, remembering to vary the speed of the engine every couple of miles. 6. Repeat number 3, 4 and 5. 7. Park car and let the engine cool down overnight. 8. Repeat all the above 2 more times. Your engine is now fully broken in correctly and can be driven hard from here on. The above procedure will also benefit engines that were not broken in properly. As with all engines, it is necessary to periodically drive the car to redline and engine brake back to stop to insure properly maintaining ring to cylinder wall fit.

One wants to limit maximum pressure. In no way by adhereing to the break-in guideliness does one simply idle around. In fact, excessive idling is typically cautioned against, though I've not checked to see if this is explicitely so in the engine break in section. Besides, in a new engine, the more important concern is not ring seating: This happens very quickly, at least up to a point; it is the camshaft lobe and valve follower interface. Starting and running a new engine and maintaining high idle -- above 2000 RPMs -- ensures the top end receives sufficient oiling that the camshaft/lifter interface do not suffer any start up wear. (One also generally coats these areas with special lube (almost a grease) and pre-pressurizes the oiling system even before starting the engine. Failing to do so can result in a camshaft lobe (or several) wearing amost round in short order.) Unless someone did something terribly wrong, the rings and cylinders seat pretty quick. (For Porsche engines, engine test stand run-in ensures this along with proper 'breaking in' of the camshaft lobe/valve followering interfaces.) Under normal driving conditions, engine load varies enough to ensure rings develop the type of interface with the cylinders to ensure a long wearing seal. By limiting RPMs and extreme loads one seeks to avoid inducing metal to metal contact that can arise from a variety of factors (besides the high load and RPMs): Higher than normal operating temperatures that all new engines experience; high load of suspended dirt in oil; machined surfaced shedding tiny particles of material that even absent metal to metal contact can and will loosen simply from the substantial friction presented by the oil film between tight fitting metal parts. Furthermore, lab and field studies have shown that even after several thousand miles engines continue to break in. Following your advice does not ensure a new and unbroken in engine becomes fully broken in, only that it is more broken in than it was before. Sincerely, Macster.

Well, if you want to be precisley accurate, an engine is never fully broken in until it is broken.

state in which is should remain for a long time: years and miles; in which essentially no wear takes place. Another way of looking at is the engine gains no measureable increase in gas mileage -- indicating a reduction in internal friction -- yet exhibits no signs of wear through increased oil consumption, fuel consuption, or degraded performance. Given reasonable treatment (avoiding extreme high RPM usage or prolonged heavy loads, etc.) the engine's behavior in this state remains essentially static and unchanging. Consider how many engine starts, how many revolutions the engine makes, etc., over a span of years -- for instance my '02 Boxster has over 163,000 miles and has on average probably 2 to 3 engine starts every day -- most from cold, let alone the number of hours the engine has run, and still runs very strong with no apparent decline in its performance from its miles -- very little actual wear can take place, otherwise the engine would wear out in a matter of hours of running. In fact, I suspect that at some point -- once the engine is broken-in (that is no measurable or significant bearing or cylinder or ring material shows up on the oil) -- the majority of engine wear in this state is primarily from corrosion. If engine oil is allowed to remain too long in the engine it will build up combustion byproducts and develop into a mild acid. This acid works to eat away at some of the materials in the engine's internal components, attacking some of the material or elements more harshly than others. As it does so, even the grains of material not dissolved by the corrosion are eventually removed, knocked loose by oil friction. Thus the engine wears even with no metal to metal contact. (Old oil looses viscosity too -- becomes thinner -- and is therefore less able to prevent metal to metal contact, which even a tiny bit can result in very accelerated engine wear, so if the increased acidity doesn't get the engine, less oil viscosity will....) This is why I believe frequent oil/filter changes which works to reduce the corrosive effects of older oil help sustain an engine into real old age. It also helps ensure the engine runs on oil that has not had its viscosity compromised by extreme change intervals. Sincerely, Macster.