paulcornwall

The engine on my STI has recently had a full rebuild, could someone clarify the running in procedure. I'm currently at 600 miles, keeping revs below 3500 rpm at the mo, can i start building them up now? Would the occasional 4500 rpm blip cause any problems?
I have a Genuine oil filter here ready for the change, am i right i should change the oil now with 10w/40 semi, then change to 10/50 millers/silkolene at 1000 miles?
I just need some clarification guys
thanks Paul.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Dont labour the engine, vary the revs, instead of holding a constant speed. Going beyond 3500 rpm is not a problem for short blips, just dont go redlining it. I ran mine in for 1500 miles and started to push the car harder after a 1000 miles. come 1500 miles i had mine then remapped to take more boost.
Once your engine is run in then use fully synthetic. I think my car stayed on mineral oil until a 1500 miles, then fully synthetic

Andy

500

Do as andy says, but do an oil change now too and don't use any boost

Slowboy Racing

Why no boost?

You need boost for the rings to seal, the more cylinder pressuer/combusition the more the compression ring is forced against the cylinder wall in tern creating the better ring seal by doing this you ultimately have less blow by and a better compression and faster motor.

If the motor is put under light load for most of the run in the chances are the rings wont seal properly. This process is more important with aftermarket crosshatch due to the roughness on the cylinder walls and the ring seat is far less to start with sometimes down to 50% from new The new blocks like the ej257 have much smoother walls where the cross hatch is barley noticeable so the loading up method is not so curtail.

It’s very important to load the car up driving it at 3500 will not correctly run any motor in and probably won’t ever run in correctly at 600 miles you ideally want to see half your total boost pressure and further up the rev range than where you are now.

As you are at 600 with low load I would suggest changing the oil but keeping the running in oil millers etc not the semi. The reason being your rings have not bedded enough. When you change to semi or fully synthetic oils before the rings have seated you can get glazing of the bores caused by the oil its self, this happens when the oil is to sticky due to the protective properties in the semi or fully synthetic oils. When the crosshatch is still deep and the ring has not seated the oil from the oil rings can stick between the very fine gaps in the cross hatch, when the piston travels up and down the bore the rings will have a polishing effect on the oil turning it into a silicone like form when this happens the bores become glazed and smooth and wont allow the rings to seat.

It’s important not to plan your oil change to the mileage rather than the load or the level the motor has been run in to.

500

So when I come to run my engine in, I should run 1.2 bar on a GT35/42 0.82 built 2.5 from when? 100 miles?

SSCJAY

I have just put Semi Synthetic to run in my built EJ257, I've already primed and had it ticking over for a couple of minutes but no miles on it yet, should I be thinking of changing it?

Slowboy Racing

Yes you should run the car on boost. Like I said what level depends on the loading over the mileage covered if you running the car on the road its harder to run the motor in correctly in a sorter time due to traffic and so on there for longer miles with easier loading if often the choice. To run a car at 600 miles with zero boost is defiantly not how I would do it.


If however you’re planning on running the car in on the rollers or a controlled environment lets say a track and its done correct and monitored and mapped as the load is increased then yes I see no reason to half your maximum boost at 150 miles on a “Built” motor and full boost at 300ish or less.





And jay that’s not ideal you really want running in oil on a fresh build as mentioned above.

doppelganger

you aint gonna like this but my advise on new engine from 3 prodrive technicians was halfords 10/40 oil ,20 mins tickover change oil for ,wait for it halfords 10/40 and drive it like you intend to drive it and change oil and filter every 3000 miles

WRXshaneWRX

iTrader: (1)

when i run mine in, i did 50 very slow miles (just up and down a local country lane) using different revs upto 3.5k but no boost. with mineral engine oil in it, then an oil change to cheap semi synthetic 10-40 iirc until i got to about 250, then changed it again to the same oil, then upto 600ish miles and hanged again and started using progressively more boost. now im at about 900 and just had it mapped to over 420bhp and will change the oil at 1000ish to fully synthetic...

gtigtr

Dont let the car idle for to long mate like its been mention above you need to drive it normaly without redlining it so the rings bed in, and also to stop the bores getting glazed.

paulcornwall

Looks like there's a few differant opinions here that leaves me in limbo, so do i change at 600 miles to a mineral or halfords 10w/40

doppelganger

if you bought a new car ,what if any would the running in procedure be??

paulcornwall

Lets establish the running in procedure after a rebuild first, dont want to confuse things further.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

there is no simple answer as people will say different things based on experience. There is a link on this site somewhere that basically tells you to rag the engine.

My advice is simple, if you have a warranty with the rebuilt engine, then follow the engine builders advice

paulcornwall

ok, so lets look at this at a differant angle, what oil should'nt i use at a 600 mile change? I dont mean to be difficult but opinions are all quite conflicting.

Slowboy Racing

My point was primarily aimed at the 600 miles and zero boost comment I don’t agree with it at all, and yes following on form that it does get confusing and it will due to so many different ways

To keep this straight forward considering you have driven the car light and under 3500rmp I would change the oil for a good quality mineral oil and continue to load up for the next 100-150 miles increasing the revs and load as you go then switch to a semi synthetic around 800 which will allow you to run more boost due to the temperature rating as most mineral oils are not to be run on turbo charged cars for sustained blasts as the oil can not cope and can carbon very quickly. At 1000 you really want to have loaded up the car enough to use it to near full potential and look at changing to a light fully synthetic, this all assuming the car is mapped or set up correctly.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

paulcornwall

Thanks bud thats cleared things up a bit. I have been building the revs up but thought i was doing wrong however could'nt resist it, so i'm glad to hear its done it more good than harm.
Regarding the oil. does Halfords do a suitable Mineral Oil or will i need to go to Opie, just saves me a trip thats all. Thanks for everyones input, i'm hoping this thread will be useful for other as well.
Paul.

Slowboy Racing

Halfords do Mobil mineral oil if that’s local, failing that millers from an online source and don’t forget the filter change.

paulcornwall

Cheers Guys, you've been most helpful