i am going to be assembling my motor shortly, i want to make sure i will not have any issues with break-in and whipping my cam out.

here is what i will be working with

brand new bottom end, pistons, rods, crank, bearings.

hydraulic roller cam XR276HR 08-503-8

the cylinder heads will be assembled, with comp cams dual valve springs Part #987-1 rated at 370 lbs./in. 1.52 ratio roller rockers

i would just need to run the proper break in oil and remove the middle valve springs on break in and run from 2k-2.5krpm for about 20mins to properly break everything in, then just change oil.

i searched the topic and im seeing people here are saying no break in necessary for hyd rollers just proper lifter soaking/charging. ive never heard of NOT break in any motor.

 

Roller cams don't require breaking in. Nothing really special needs to be done, just keep an eye on oil pressure and temps. Most important thing is to get the rings seated. Start it, let it get a little heat in it and bring it off idle, vary the rpm's, basically put a load on the rings both through acceleration and deceleration. Don't necessarily have to beat the snot out of it, but too much idle time and being to soft on it won't let the rings seat properly.

 

Hydraulic rollers don't need to be broken in like that. The more you read. The more opinions you're going to find. Some people beat on them as soon as they get them running. Some take it easy for the first 500 miles.

I personally ran break in oil. Started it. Let it get up to operating temperature. Shut it down. Drained the oil. Checked the oil/filter for shavings. Changed the oil. Took it easy for the next 500 miles (no wot but varied rpms enough to break rings in). Then changed the oil again.

 

With a roller cam, that's all you need to do. The old "break in procedure" was for flat tappet cams. The reason you're running up the engine to temperature then draining the oil out of it is to remove anything left in the engine after a rebuild. Hopefully the oil will pick up any small particles off the metal and bring it back to the pan and filter. I wouldn't be too worried about finding small amounts of metal in the filter. That's common. Large parts mean bearings are in trouble. If all goes well, the next oil change should show very little if any metal in the filter.

 

i am still young but i have grown up with flat tappet cams and i know how crucial the break in is with them. then i got to reading and im seeing all these different opinions

 

My dad likes to use the burnout box to break in a new engine!

 

This is how I did it. I gave the motor heavy throttle from 40-60 mph 10 times. Each time I did it, I let the motor slowly decelerate to 40 mph. 7,000 miles later, the new roller cam and the rings are doing their job perfectly.

 

warm it up, change oil/filter, check the valve train, new oil and let it eat! If something isn't right, an easy break in ain't gonna fix it!

 

That's exactly what I do. The car isn't street legal so it only gets minimal run time in the garage or being loaded into the trailer. The only time the engine gets to work is at the track. By the time the first burnout is done, the engine is broken in.

 

Again, you're trying to do a flat tappet cam break-in with a roller cam. NO NEED TO DO THAT.

One of my buddies just got his flat-tappet cam motor running a few months ago. It's a 400 SBC, and I tried again and again to get him to go retro-roller….but I understand…it ain't cheap to convert. Luckily, he read up on what you described in your first post, and he used break-in lube that was uber expensive…but all went well….with the cam at least.

He also put on new aluminum heads and didn't re-torque them. After a couple hundred miles, his oil looked like a milkshake. He got lucky AGAIN after he re-torqued the heads and they sealed up!! I gotta buy some lotto tickets with him!!

I know I went off topic…let us know how it goes...

 

Your still going to use a break-in oil.And don't go to a synthetic right off the bat.On your first oil change use the regular oil you would normally use.

A good read:

http://enginebuildermag.com/2013/07/racing-oils/

 

From your article "it still takes a little run-time to fully seat therings. We’re talking 30 to 45 minutes of run-time at varying engine speeds andloads to seat the rings, and maybe up to an hour or two of run-time as needed,but no more."

I don’t know how much I'd trust that article.... I do failure mode analysis for turbo machinery and I can tell you that if it takes more than a good wack or two of the throttle to "break in" you better start pulling it apart because somebody messed up.

Engines are precision engineered, machined and assembled devices, the magical "break ins" you hear about are just hot rodder wives tales especially when considering roller engines. They probably started from guys who built an engine or two and they ran like crap, then on their next try they got better (or lucky) at building an engine, but used a "break in" and the engine lived. So they think it was the break in...

 

I rebuilt the motor that was in my 98 silverado from bare block and as soon as I got it in and started it up, all sounded fine. I drove the **** out of it from then on. If anything was going to go wrong I wanted it to in the first few miles. No sense in taking it easy.

 

Larry Carley,the author, is a industry leader and this article is being published on the number one magazine in the engine building industry.You might want to reread it.The Engine Builder Magazine by design is not for the end users,but more for businesses involved in building engines for a living.Certainly not for the end user who builds one or two engines in his lifetime.

For 40yrs we have build and sold engines for a select group of customers.The articles written are from engineers and some of industries best thinkers and is the reason why I follow the articles and suggest other people bookmark the site.

 

I dont care what name you drop, their break in recommendation is simply not correct. Ask 25 big name engine builders and you'll get a bunch of different break in procedure recommendations. The common denominator is they machine and assembly their engines properly, not the voodoo that is engine "break in". Look at the junkyard lsx stuff, those engines roll off the assembly line and get treated to all kinds of break ins, and the vast majority are in great shape after 100k because they were well built. We build high precision machinery every day, when it's right it's right, when it's wrong, its wrong. You dont see failures and poor running machery because it wasnt broken in correctly, you see it due to improper parts, FOD, lubrication issues, fatigue, and overloads/shocks/overheating.

 

Not dropping names here.I give people two chances to learn.Then realizes it ant worth it.Well,I did use one big name...............ME!!.

 

Don't most manufacturers send their brand new cars to the dealerships with their brand new engines filled with synthetic oil these days?

 

For some reason I thought the engines were ran and broken in at assembly and then put in to fresh cars

 

They may be... I really dont know. I know GM has a crate engine that gets run for something like 24 hours through a grueling torture test before you buy it. I wish I could remember which one it was, though. One of the LS engines I think. Actually... I think it was a crate 5.3. Not the most powerful engine out there, but interesting that they allegedly have to survive a 24 hour load test that was, if I recall, at RPM's between peak torque and peak hp. That's pretty nuts.

But do they do that with regular engines? I dont know...

 

I worked at a Chevy engine plant run tested engines on propane.Recently read about 5.3 engines having roller lifter failures because of the higher spring pressures and synthetic oils.