And so it begins

[TalonChief]

Originally Posted by fxr4mikey

so, did you put on an external vent system ?

I met Kevin yesterday on BigMikes GA43 ride, he and Carl both have them on their bikes ...... I want one !!!

Kevin did them .... has some avaition lines that he made fittings for, and used some kind of sensitive pvc valves at the jugs ...... runs the lines down to a collector mounted at the bottom front of the frame with a small air filter on top of it and a drain valve at the bottom. A real slick setup ..... did I say I wanted one on my bike !!!

No, I did not change that, but I am very interested in seeing this device you speak of.

[TalonChief]

Originally Posted by fxr4mikey

OH Yeah, CONGRATULATIONS on the completion of yer build Tim !!

Nice Goin !

and Thanks for all the pics, pointers and tips along the way !!

Nice Job !!!!!!!!

Thanks.

[route66paul]

Originally Posted by meanbean

Minton

Minton's technique in case you have problems finding it...

This is an area of no small controversy. Here's my opinion, after breaking in 21 new motorcycles. You can get other opinions from Moto Man or in your owner's manual. You'll find what I have to say is in reasonable agreement with Moto Man, and we both contradict your owner's manual rather strongly.

I believe when breaking in a new engine you have several things to accomplish, and several things to avoid. Your new engine is not perfectly machined, and in the course of running for the first few hours a fair amount of metal will be worn off various engine parts and wind up in your oil. These metal chips will quickly overwhelm your oil filter, which is really not made to handle the volume of junk that happens in the first couple hours. You don't want to drive around a for a long time with a lot of metal chips in your oil.

In the first 15 to 30 minutes you run your motor, there can be very small hot spots that get to temperatures that are really not at all healthy for your motor. The motor overall is a large system and will almost certainly not overheat, but this doesn't mean every little spot on your pistons, rings, bearings, and cylinder walls is within temperature spec. Of course, you don't want to overheat your motor.

Your engine rings are probably designed to spin around the piston as your motor runs. If you run your motor for a long time at the same rpm, your rings can cut small spiral grooves in your cylinders that effect your rings sealing and lifetime.

My opinion: The bike should be started and allowed to warm up at an idle for about two minutes. This is to get the oil at something close to operating temperature. Then, ride the bike normally for about 5 miles. Stay off freeways or anywhere else that would make you maintain a constant speed. Don't lug the engine - run the engine in the mid-range rpm band, roughly 1/3 to 2/3 of the red line rpm. You want to be accelerating and decelerating, and using the engine as a brake to slow you down at times. Stop, turn off the engine, and let the engine cool for about 5 minutes. This is to even out the temperature in case there are any hot spots. Start the bike and ride for about 10 minutes, again in stop and go traffic. Stop and allow about 5 minutes for the engine temperature to even out.

Now, ride the bike fairly hard for about 25 to 50 miles. A mountain or curvy road is a good thing at this point. You can use the entire rpm band, up to and perhaps even a bit over the red line. Make sure to accelerate and decelerate a lot, using full throttle and using the engine as a brake. Notice that your owner's manual says at this point you should still be keeping the RPM under something like 4,000. I disagree with this quite strongly. Moto Man gives a good argument on why the factories give such a recommendation, which goes against all my experience and understanding and what every racing team in the universe does.

At about 50 miles, go home and change the oil and the filter. I strongly recommend you use a top quality oil filter, a Purolator Pure One, Mobil-1, Bosch, or SuperTech. I recommend you use a synthetic oil such as Shell Rotella, Mobil-1 SUV, or Delvac-1. If you simply can't bring yourself to use a synthetic in a new engine, use Chevron Delo-400. Don't use a 10w-30 oil. If your manufacturer recommends a 20w-50 oil, use Mobil-1 red cap or Chevron Delo-400 15w-40, which meets the high speed shear standards of a 20w-50 oil. Information on oils and oil filters is available on this web page, see the Lubricants section. When you take out your factory oil, if you hold it up in the sunlight you'll see the color is very good, it looks almost completely unused, but you'll see lots of reflections from metal flakes in the oil. These flakes are very bad for your engine, and can clog up your oil filter so that your filter bypass is activated, meaning you effectively don't have an oil filter. Notice that the factory says you should still be using the factory oil and oil filter. I think this is insane.

There is indeed a lot of controversy here. This is a great way to break in an engine that you are completely sure of, not one that you have just done a top end on with parts supplied and modified by others. If the engine comes apart, those suppliers will say that there is another reason for it and then probaley won'y even cover thier parts, much less any labor.

If you are racing an engine, this would be fine. You have idle and WOT. a Street friendly bike has a decent ridability factor and may not like this engine.