:doh:how can I

lol Hey if you want to pay the toll and give me a hand you are welcome to! Those boners are still in the fridge... next time you come over they must be drank.

lets do it!


I was just about to assemble everything but I think I am going to hold tight until I get that bearing replaced tomorrow morning

thoughts on break-in oil since I have new bearings, seals, housing and irons?

9 k--the eye thing--the same for me--right eye--not legally blind but --noot real good. Weird.

break in oil--regular cheap dyno oil--change after the 100 miles and then change after 500 miles. I used 10/40 wgt Filter too and dont forget a magnet in the system somewhere. After that use the oil of your choice. I really like Redline 5w30. It has the hths of a 40 wgt. Thats the way I do it. Everyone seems to have a little different way. Dont forget to prime the system before you fire it up.
Did you flush your oil coolers etc?

I agree with Denny. some regular cheap dyno oil.. I like the idea of using GTX10w-40. Your break in is going to be long with new bearings and hand cut side seals. I would like to give mine about 1500 miles or so before I start really getting on it.

Both Scott and I use SCSI magnets from old hard drives. They work great when stuck to the side of the filter. It would be intresting to do so on your break in and cut the filter apart to see what stuck.

did not flush the coolers but will and will also prime the system

yea I will give it a 1000-1200 for sure. I have some GTX 5w20 I would really like to use up plus I will be changing oil after the first 50 or so miles.

I have several grade n52 neodymium magnets....I think I will use the ones with 15lbs of pull :)

I like the idea of cutting the filter but I am not sure if the shavings from cutting would contaminate the "sample" ;)

I have a shit load of kerosene...would that be good to flush the coolers?

Break in oil might be a good idea if you can find it cheap enough. I just ended up using Autozone brand 10W-40 for the first two oil changes and then switched to M1 0W-40. The autozone stuff is cheap.

I found RP at NAPA (and I ordered my rad hoses there) for $9/qt


I would assume I need like 8 qts+ or some crap to fill the whole system

Yeah that is pretty expensive, there should be some break in oil cheaper. That engine place we went too sells it too.

Bearings don't break in. If your oil is doing it's job there will never be any contact between the babbits in the bearings. There is nothing to break in. The break in has to do with seals. Seals seat with pressure on them and going easy on the engine initially isn't giving it a ton of pressure. I have always believed in a hard break in for a rotary. I have never had a rotary failure.

Start the engine for the first time. Get it up to operating tempurature and let it idle for about 20 minutes. Check for leaks, over heating, etc. If all checks out well, go drive it for 20 miles. Hard. Very hard. Like you stole it. Hit red line under load a few times. After 20 miles shut the car off, let it cool, and change the oil and filter. 80% of your break in is now done. You'd be shocked at how much metal is in your oil at this point.

From mile 20 to mile 500, drive normally like you would going to the store. No more hard driving for this period. At mile 500 change the oil and filter again. From mile 500 to 1000 drive normally but add a bit more aggressiveness to it. Get it up a bit higher in the rpm range than you normally would while driving. At mile 1000 change the oil and filter again. Break in is now done.

This may sound like a strange technique but you will get better compression and mileage than any other technique. It is the best way to break in a rotary engine. The whole go easy on it for 1000 miles crap is the WORST thing you can do to a new engine! Don't under any circumstances use this old antiquated technique. I don't care what kind of engine it is.

I'll check...Bowman was talking to me about his "snake oil" and it was dirt cheap and easy to find local

do you know how much an empty system will hold?

that is a hard freaking pill to swallow:scratchhe

I followed Rob at Pineapples break in procedure but as you know, as with everything else, if you ask ten different builders you will get ten different answers.

Just because it has ALWAYS been done wrong doesn't make it right today. If I listened to everyone else, I'd have the same problems they do.

Actually, let's discuss this. I want to see who says what and why. If you give me the argument that "so and so said to do it this way" or that "it's always been done this way", I'm going to laugh at you. Learn to think for yourself. Don't be a lemming and blindly jump off of a cliff because everyone else is. Let's get started. Give me your answers and we'll move on.

What is the break in period trying to accomplish?

Basically (in my mind) the break in is to properly seat the seals, get everything lubricated, and basically let everything inside the engine get in sync. I would think doing this is a gentle manner would be the best bet. The frequent oil changes are to basically flush the engine of any left over "junk" from assembly lube, old oil in the cooler lines, etc.

Edit: Priming the engine before first start up is also a good idea IMO.

I would think the aggressive approach increases the chances of uneven wear and/or larger particles of contaminates to affect the quality of the break-in. Thus taking a slow delicate approach accomplishes the same thing overtime with less likelihood of irreversible damage

That is correct (9K). That's exactly what it's for. Keep in mind that it only takes seconds for everything to get lubricated after start up. Most engine wear is during this period for this very reason.

Since wear metals enter the oil most aggressively during the break in period, can we agree that you can't change the oil or filter too often? Don't bring cost or laziness into this? I don't believe in the concept of overkill. There is only doing it correctly or not. Keep in mind that the longer wear metals remain in the oil, the more likely they are to embed into things such as the soft material of bearings.

Why? What causes an uneven wear situation?

With 3 oil and filter changes within the first 1000 miles my way vs only 1 the easy way, the engine oil is going to be cleaner with fewer particles in it so that's a non issue.

Yeah I wanted to make sure I got any shavings, gunk, leftover RTV, etc. out of my engine so I changed it three or four times in the first 1,000 miles before switching to synthetic. And since I had to pull the turbo again I have already changed it twice in the past week and I plan on changing it again this weekend one last time before going to my first regular 3,000 mile oil change interval.

Is there a way to negate the extra wear from inital start up? Would you even want to do that?

In regards to the actual breaking in of components, as I said, bearings don't touch. They can't break in. There is a white film on a new bearing that you can rub off with a tissue. That's how soft it is. It is not uncommon to pull a bearing out of an old motor (that had no bearing issues) and still have this white film intact. Bearings don't break in. If they touch, it's bad!

That leaves only the seals such as oil, apex, side, and corner. Pressure holds them against the surface they are intended to seal and it is this initial rubbing that laps them smooth with each other. Where does this pressure come from? Is it the springs? If I told you that you could run a rotary engine with no apex seal springs would you believe me? You won't be able to start it but as the rpm's climb, the added forces on the seals from both centripetal force and combustion pressures will hold the seals out against the housings in a way that the springs can't. You can push the springs in with your fingers! It takes pressure to hold the seals against the housings and the more pressure holding them down, the flatter they will be. This is very important during break in. If you break in gently, the seals may not seat as good as possible. They will never seat well after this point. The key is to keep pressure high and that's not done by being gentle.

Why do people recommend a conventional oil vs a synthetic during break in? Again, it isn't the bearings. This has mostly to do in a rotary with the oil control rings since they have direct contact with the oil. If the oil is too good, the seals can't properly seat against the housings. Having lower combustion chamber pressures will only make this worse. The point is to make sure there is contact there. May as well make the best of it and get the pressures up. The rest of the seals in the rotary are lubricated very minutely through oil metering and gasoline. The surface of the housings is also nitride coated which is an anti-friction agent. It's penetrates down into the metal so breaking in the engine is fine since you will only remove this layer through resurfacing of housings or very high mileage wear.

If you blow up an engine during a hard break in, you were going to blow it up anyways.

This whole discussion may be moot in relation to this thread. Alot of porting has gone into this engine. It may not be a good idea to run it hard till the car is tuned properly.