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How important is the break-in on a 4-stroke ?

Joined
Nov 17, 2007
Messages
5
I've been told some of the fastest machines out there are broken in on the grass 660ft summer races ? then others say to follow yamaha's guide lines of not going over certain r.p.m until you reach certain milage ? or I've also heard to pin the throttle for 8 seconds and use engine breaking only? DOES ANYONE REALLY KNOW!!!!!!! :4STroke:
 

big black attack said:
I've been told some of the fastest machines out there are broken in on the grass 660ft summer races ? then others say to follow yamaha's guide lines of not going over certain r.p.m until you reach certain milage ? or I've also heard to pin the throttle for 8 seconds and use engine breaking only? DOES ANYONE REALLY KNOW!!!!!!! :4STroke:

Basically.....no. Not to be blunt about it or anything, but nobody really does KNOW or have empirical evidence about many or ANY of the theories out there. There are just a lot of different methods and a lot of people that "swear by" this or "have heard" that. Bottom line is do what you are most comfortable with and if you are unsure and worried about hurting it, follow what the manual recommends. That isn't going to hurt anything.
 
big black attack said:
Basically.....no. Not to be blunt about it or anything, but nobody really does KNOW or have empirical evidence about many or ANY of the theories out there. There are just a lot of different methods and a lot of people that "swear by" this or "have heard" that. Bottom line is do what you are most comfortable with and if you are unsure and worried about hurting it, follow what the manual recommends. That isn't going to hurt anything.

If you read motoman's article you will see why his method works. Loading the rings is the key to sealing the piston ring. I have always broke in all my engines (even before I read his article) basically the way he suggests. My bikes, sleds, boats, autos always run great, burn on oil and are always perform better then others of the same make and model I run against. Talk to anyone who builds high performance engines they will tell you that they run them hard right from the get go. And a lot of manufactures run their brand new engines hard on a dyno prior to leaving the factory. Do what you want but I have never read on this site or any other site about someone that had an issue using his method. I only read about people who swear by it including me. I am confident that if there are people out there that had an issue with his method someone somewhere would have written about it.
 
No one will admit to having any issues after having done the Motoman method. To many people would say, "see, I told you so...."

I can also say the same thing as posted above. I broke mine in using the recommended procedure by Yamaha, my sled runs great, it never burns any oil and it's always performs better than others of the same make and model I've run against. I can also swear by this method.

There, two opinions.

jf
 
when i got my 06' attak, i rode it normal not even thinking about the break-in, i have almost 4,000 mi. on it and have never had a problem it runs awesome, when i was on the lakes it was wide open from the beginning
 
ecopter said:
No one will admit to having any issues after having done the Motoman method. To many people would say, "see, I told you so...."

I can also say the same thing as posted above. I broke mine in using the recommended procedure by Yamaha, my sled runs great, it never burns any oil and it's always performs better than others of the same make and model I've run against. I can also swear by this method.

There, two opinions.

jf

I'm out at the General Motors Milford Michigan Proving Grounds several times a week. In the Dyno Lab we are sometimes scheduled to run certain tests that require brand new engines to be run at wide open throttle on the dyno for testing purposes and rarely have an issue. On the rare occasion that we do have an issue, after disassembly we find something out of spec a flaw or an issue with assembly and the part would have failed regardless of how it was broken in. I’m curious about what kind of problems you think would be associated with loading the rings with short wide open throttle bursts like he suggests.
 
The biggest thing when breaking it in is not to over heat it. I would drive it easy for first 30-50 miles (under 8500RPM). After that, you can get on it, but don't hold it for more than 1500 ft until you hit 300 miles, then drive it like you stole it.
 
There are lots of sleds born with boost every season. Meaning taken from the crate turbos or SC installed on them and run the piss out of them. I don't beleive much in the break in of these motors. Heat cycle em a couple times and off you go. My apex after 2 seasons of boosted riding has a 4-5% leak down on all 4 cylinders. The cross hatch hone marks are still in the cylinder walls like the day it was built!
 
TurboJamie said:
There are lots of sleds born with boost every season. Meaning taken from the crate turbos or SC installed on them and run the piss out of them. I don't beleive much in the break in of these motors. Heat cycle em a couple times and off you go. My apex after 2 seasons of boosted riding has a 4-5% leak down on all 4 cylinders. The cross hatch hone marks are still in the cylinder walls like the day it was built!

Same here ride how you are going to.
 
I own 2 Apex's. One I broke in the motoman way, the other by the book. Now at the 1500 mile mark and they both run about the same.
 
The most important thing is to vary the engine speed. Don't go for a long cruise down a railroad bet at a steady rpm. If you don't feel comfortable hitting full throttle just do half. Just don't keep a steady a rpm.
 
Alot have suggestions on how to break in these 4 stroke motors,but alot seem to have forgotten that there the same ones that were using SEAFOAM after a poor break-in procedure,and then turning it around and blaming Yam for a poor ring design.LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Some just have far too much money and couldn't care less, they'll just sell the oil burner to someone else a year or two down the road.
 
I always vary the throttle continuously for the first hundred miles or so, and then do the odd WOT run for 3-5 seconds at a time till I hit the 800 km mark and it's good to go. Did that on my last 2 stroke sled and it was a very strong runner compared to even more powerful sleds, and I did it on every other 4 stroke sled I've owned and the results were the same. Basically use some common sense and you should be fine, I just wouldn't hold it WOT right off the hop because I've seen quite a few Yamaha's burn oil after a difficult birth !
 


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