IW STi Forum banner

Will you follow the break in requirement?

  • Follow break in period full 1000 miles

    Votes: 309 65.6%
  • Give it a couple hundred miles then open her up

    Votes: 90 19.1%
  • What break in period. Let it fly.

    Votes: 72 15.3%

Engine Break In Period

Engine 
162K views 355 replies 127 participants last post by  F1EA 
#1 ·
Subaru's still recommending a 1000 mile break in period where you shouldn't be going past 3000 RPM. Looking for opinions on what people think of this. I picked up my 2015 Limited today and quickly learned following this guideline limits you to roughly 70 mph in 6th gear. Such a tease having so much more power in the car and not being able to use it yet.
 
#5 ·
Once the engine is completely warm, after 10 minutes or so of driving, lots of mild/ moderate acceleration and even more deceleration using engine braking. Keeping it under the red maybe 5.5 k or so. .Then once at 500 miles up to the redline using the same tech .that's how I treated my 2009 STI which had the cobb stage 1 installed as I drove off the lot. Burns no oil and zero problems at 36 K.

Theres lots of theories here if you search.. . .Just have fun your covered anyway. But warm the engine !!! and vary throttle !!! no highway road trips !!!
 
#7 ·
I have this concern also. I have my pickup and a car trailer to hall it back with though. Check around or ask friends and family someone probably knows of someone who has a trailer/truck if you don't have one you could use. Sign for the car, drive it around for an hr or two bring it back to the dealer and trailer it. Hopefully that will feed the craving for a few hrs till you get home.
 
#8 ·
The biggest thing I see while researching.. is not keeping the engine too hot for long.. drive soft or even hard for 20 minutes let the car cool. Obviously this is unrealistic so drive soft.. im still arguing with myself what to do...either drive too and from work boringly for a month to break it in.. or do it in one go.. for 150 miles im going to drive hard to and from work 15 minutes away and by the time I get there let the engine cool. Its all about heating your engine up and cooling it down heating it up cooling it down..

I did NOT want to wait for my ducati to be broken in. Best 100 bucks ive ever spent.. they had discounts at a dealership where they dyno broke it in. Went through all the gears almost full throttle then let it engine break through all the gears.. turn bike off let it cool with the big dyno fan do it again 3 more times.. they broke that baby in beautifully in 40 minutes

Sent from my KFAPWI using Tapatalk HD
 
#9 ·
This is my conclusion after researching on both the soft method (manual) and the hard method (mototune).

Similarities:
1. No sustain on particular rpm
2. Not get engine too hot

I am biased towards the hard method because it makes sense to me to load the piston ring against cylinder wall. I therefore arrived at a middle ground between the 2 methods.

What I did:
After warming up at idle when picking up my new car. I drive it to the nearest uphill road I can find. I did this in the evening before the dealership was about to close so ambient temp is cool. I did 3 runs of half throttle uphill (below 4k rpm) and engine brake down the hill in 3rd gear every time. Then I did 3 pulls of hit red line at full throttle up the hill and same rev matched engine braking down the hill.

After all this, I just drive normally. My car is still stock and I have not consume any oil in between changes.

getting old and saggy
 
#10 ·
^ interesting. How many miles are you at? Its all subjective it seems as well.. Just the past few years the lubricants they use for the first 600 miles alone jumped in advancement. The engineers who designed these lubricant say you don't even need to worry about break in anymore. But I like your method


Sent from my HTC6990LVW using Tapatalk
 
#12 ·
Subaru's still recommending a 1000 mile break in period where you shouldn't be going past 3000 RPM. Looking for opinions on what people think of this. I picked up my 2015 Limited today and quickly learned following this guideline limits you to roughly 70 mph in 6th gear. Such a tease having so much more power in the car and not being able to use it yet.
The break in RPM not to exceed is 4000 not 3000
 
#14 ·
Follow the break-in procedure as the first bit with the car is crucial period, keep your RPM under 4k for the first 1000 miles and just drive the car normally, then change the oil to a quality oil (I like Redline 5w30) a magnetic drain plug doesn't hurt either. I also highly recommend installing a Crawford V2 Air Oil Separator.
 
#17 ·
Here's what Cosworth has to say about break in for their built EJ257 engines. hint: it's the same as the factory recommendation.

http://208.106.249.235/store/pc/catalog/subaru sti ej25 short block all install v1.0c.pdf

I think the trick is to avoid prolonged operation at the same RPM. For you guys driving on the highway after delivery, just take an exit from the highway every so often and use engine braking to slow to the stop. Check out some scenery along the way to allow for heat cycles, etc. Drive through some downtown areas to get more running up/down the rev ranges.
 
#18 ·
Here's what Cosworth has to say about break in for their built EJ257 engines. hint: it's the same as the factory recommendation.

http://208.106.249.235/store/pc/catalog/subaru sti ej25 short block all install v1.0c.pdf

I think the trick is to avoid prolonged operation at the same RPM. For you guys driving on the highway after delivery, just take an exit from the highway every so often and use engine braking to slow to the stop. Check out some scenery along the way to allow for heat cycles, etc. Drive through some downtown areas to get more running up/down the rev ranges.
COBB's break in recommendation for built engines is also quite similar to factory recommendation: COBB Tuning - Subaru Accesstuner Pro. Difference here is sounds like they recommend increasing the rpm limit slightly towards the end of the 1,000mi. They also stress not hitting very much boost at all. The COBB certified tuner that I will be using also seconded this recommendation/factory recommendation for both new and built engines. They also recommended changing the oil at 1,000mi to make sure any bits of metal are removed, and they recommended using dino oil for this first change. They then recommended switching to synthetic oil at 4,000mi. I don't know about you all, but I'm going to go with what COBB and their certified tuners recommend - they've worked on and built more of these engines than just about anyone else out there.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Do break-in only when your car has less than 5 miles on it. If your car has more than that, chances that it was being a test drove for a Joy ride happened. You know how that goes....usually they will red line it out every time they have the chance.

Break in idea is to have the Metals down to micro size to be smoothed out, that includes the uses of oil being used. So if you break-in with that oil brand, always stick with it.

Another thing is the Temperature of the engine, slightly increase it, then cool down, rinse and repeat. This will get the Metals to get Used to the Fluctuating Temperatures, after a while the Atom structures will be set, so it will not easily crumble or crack.

1/ Idle to warm, shutdown to cool.
2/ Idle to warm, drive for 5 minutes @ low rpm+speed. Shutdown to cool
3/ Idle to warm, drive for 10 minutes @ higher rpm+speed. Shutdown to cool
4/ Rinse and repeat. Gotta keep it below max torque RPM range to avoid stress, strain.

keep doing that until 350 miles. Now the engine shall be ready for rapid powers, speed, rpm, loads. Drive like a maniac for another 650 miles. Now you are done breaking in

And I am not joking about driving it like a Maniac, you have to do rapid acceleration, Deceleration, Red-line, Loads. That is to make it used to all the stress and conditions. Voila.

But as how complicated a proper break-in is....just let it fly, because chances are most of them was test drove on
 
#32 ·
I picked up my Limited on Wednesday and it had 6 miles on it. None of which were from test drives. The dealer had a strict policy of no test drives in any STI and they only allow a 2 mile test drive of a WRX. Plus I preordered the car. I can say in confidence other then the transport of the car and testing in the factory, my car was not beaten up. Looks like I'm going to follow the break in protocol. Your sure it's good to go after 350 miles though? Subaru says not to exceed 4000 RPM for the first 1000 miles.
 
#29 ·
No car has < 5 miles on it at delivery. Cars are run on a dyno at the factory as final inspection. Then, driving from the line to the truck to the boat to the VDC to the truck to the lot adds miles.

I did European delivery on my 335, and the odometer read 0 miles when I picked it up. Turns out they reset the odometer when it arrives at the delivery center to remove all the transportation miles.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
#33 ·
lol the annual break in threads…

I would do this. First 500 miles nothing above 3k. Next 250, 3500, last 250, 4000. After that I wouldn't floor it to red line (which I may or may not have done, and had no problems what so ever after 24k miles) but on this car, I am going to increment the RPMs. So after 1000 miles, take 100 miles where I hit 4.5k next 100 miles hit 5k, next 10 miles hit 5.5k, 6k so on.
 
#34 ·
And correct me if I am wrong, but the RPM you push the car to, is literally just the speed in which the piston moves, so it's not necessarily the amount of force being applied on the rings.

So like, C.T. Fletcher could hit you in the face at one constant force, over and over again very quickly, or very slowly, the punches all hurt the same. But if CT fletcher punches you in the face as hard as he can, it will hurt a lot more.

See where I am going with this? I don't think going WOT has any benefit to breaking in the motor.
 
#35 ·
RPM is specifically the rotational speed of the crankshaft which in turn drives the pistons linearly. So RPM is not piston speed. Piston speed is a factor of the radius attachment to the crank. The farther out from the centerline of the crank the faster the piston travels linearly related to the rotation of the crank.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top