How to break in a new motorcycle...

[Porsche Monkey]

Don't ever put an engine to bed hot.

[He Man]

whats bed hot?

[Hedgehog]

whats bed hot?

Putting an engine to be hot means to shut it down at the end of an acceleration without giving it a chance to cool down a bit.  Pistons, valves, and cylinder heads (especially air-cooled) undergo a lot of thermal stress when operating at high energy output.  What we're saying is that you don't chop the throttle from WOT and shut the engine down without giving it a minute or two to cool down; preferably while the bike is moving.

[mstevens]

I always tell my customers to just drive the car normally as they would drive any other car. Don't take it to redline every shift

You're not making sense: do I drive it as I would any other car, or do I avoid taking it to redline every shift? I can't do both!

[Capo]

My S4R went straight from the showroom to the Dyno, where it was run up in a similar sequenced manner, it made 113HP, a strip down after 6,000 mile showed no excesive wear or damage.
Kevin Cameron wrote a good article on break in and stressed the requirement for temperature cycling.

[donzo]

I just bought an '07 S2R 800 with 137 miles on it and am bringing her home in a couple of weeks.  The dude that sold it to me bought it at the end of fall '07 and didn't ride it all summer because he was strapped for cash (having bought a 2nd house around the same time and not being able to sell the first) and wanted to retain some resale value for the bike.  So I don't think it is nearly broken in at all.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to break it in since it's been sitting idle for so long?  Is there anything I should be aware of or should look out for?  I've got a 6-8 weeks max to do it before winter hits as I am in Canada, and will have to store the bike for 5 months.  Should I get 600 miles out of her and change the oil before I put her away?  Thanks, Donzo.

[He Man]

Um, just do a quick over look over her. finger bang her all over the place, let her idle for 5-10mins to make sure there are no leaks then good to go. Do you think you can put on 600 miles in 6 weeks?  If so, let her rip. up to you on how you want to break her in, but id personally go with what was posted on this threads original post. warm her up and let her rip, keep the RPMs varied, and ride the balls out of it.

[Craig Thomas]

I'm just over 300 miles on the 696.  Break in is a PITA according to the rules in the book.   Don't go over 6000rpm, but at the same time, don't lug the motor, and be sure to vary the RPM.   This only leaves 2000 rpms to play with! 

  Under 4k, the motor feels like it's lugging.  So coming out of a turn, I need to downshift it an extra gear, but then shift quickly again to stay under 6k.  The salesman at the shop said that the manual is being a little conservative on the RPM recommendation.

  For now, I'll go over 6k just a bit when before upshifting.  Patience....

  Any thoughts?

[Spidey]

Can we move this thread out of Tutorials and into Tech, please?     Gracias. 

[hcomp]

Just found this thread and I will wake it up from the dead and also throw in 2 cents from the racing engine world and vehicle testing world.  I have raced cars for 22 years now and I have been testing vehicles for various manufacturers for 6 years.  I have asked the break-in question to several design engineers over the years....Here is what they have said from my experience in the automotive industry.....  The legal department writes the break in procedure. That is the short and long of it. What the engineers suggest is vary the RPM, vary the RPM, vary the RPM!!! Also they suggest giving a good amount of throttle aka hard accel for a few seconds in order to build cylinder pressure on the rings. This is to occur every 10 minutes or so when running the engine.  Your engine is broken in after 300 miles or so.  When you bring your bike in for the first service, they dump the dyno oil and go to synthetic. Trust me, after they put the synthetic in there will be no more breaking in the motor. The funny thing here is your manual says it will not complete the break in until 2500KM? On synthetic? I don't think so...Now when I did the launch and testing on the Nissan GTR the break-in procedure that I performed was, I went on the track and hit redline the first accel run...I drove the car as hard as I could for 1500 miles with out failure. The same car then went out to all the magazines for write ups. How do you think magazine editors broke the thing in? Still no failures.  the car had  16,000 miles on it when it came back to Nissan. Still runs today no failures.. Now what I would suggest is following the procedure for the brakes, chain, etc.  I asked my dealer mechanic how to break in my bike and he told me the same as always vary the RPM and ride the crap out of it.  Everything I have heard, read and believe is don't run the engine at a constant RPM and yes do not put it to bed hot.......There is my 2 cents...

[Langanobob]

The legal department writes the break in procedure.

Thank you for saying this!  A lot of people have been saying the same thing but it carries more weight from someone who actually knows the engineers.

Trust me, after they put the synthetic in there will be no more breaking in the motor

I agree with what you posted, and agree that  most of the break-in is complete within a hundred miles or so - except I'm still dubious about the above statement.  I think the synthetic has some major advantages, better VI and especially better high temp performance which is important with Ducs.  I've used synthetic oil in everything I own for a long time and my experience is that engines run exclusively on synthetic oil wear just like engines run on dyno oil.  If they wear they will also break in.  I am  sort of cynical and suspect that the "synthetic oil is so slick that your rings will never seat" legend  was started by the synthetic oil vendors as a marketing ploy.  However, I still break in my engines with dyno oil...

[Howie]

Thank you for saying this!  A lot of people have been saying the same thing but it carries more weight from someone who actually knows the engineers.

I agree with what you posted, and agree that  most of the break-in is complete within a hundred miles or so - except I'm still dubious about the above statement.  I think the synthetic has some major advantages, better VI and especially better high temp performance which is important with Ducs.  I've used synthetic oil in everything I own for a long time and my experience is that engines run exclusively on synthetic oil wear just like engines run on dyno oil.  If they wear they will also break in.  I am  sort of cynical and suspect that the "synthetic oil is so slick that your rings will never seat" legend  was started by the synthetic oil vendors as a marketing ploy.  However, I still break in my engines with dyno oil...

There is some truth to synthetic oil being bad for break in if you are talking about car energy conserving 5 0r 0W-30 oils, but if the oil is a moto specific oil formulated for wet clutches there is no way it is too slick.  Full throttle acceleration is bad for a carbie engine, well, not so much the acceleration but deceleration from full throttle, since fuel will be drawn in from the high vacuum that can dilute oil.  This would not be a problem with FI.  I would use dyno oil for break in because you will be dumping it so quickly.

[Capo]

Does anyone know for sure what oil is put in by ducati?

[Triple J]

<engineer>

Legal departments, bean counters, and managers make more decisions about things than most people realize.

</engineer>

[TAftonomos]

Does anyone know for sure what oil is put in by ducati?

Mine came with virgin olive oil... EXTRA VIRGIN at that.