Running In Oil Rb26

[TiTAN]

I have used the same basic running in process for lots of years and on many engines;

Castrol GTX (the basic no frills mineral oil) with new filter.

Run engine for about 1/2 hr or until well warm.

Change oil filter. Engines can have particles in them that acccumulate during the build/maching proces and they need to be removed from the engine ASAP, these are caught in the oil filter. If you leave them in, the oil filter can get blocked and so it will be bypassed ie; no filtering.

Check the basic tune on the dyno or on the road with portable lambda sensor.

Drive to Bathurst and back, around 500k's, lots of varying conditions, up and down hills, freeway, long climbs etc. Don't rev the beegeesus out of it, gentle but firm, change throttle openings often, no slogging it in high gears with lots of throttle and load it up with partial throttle openings going up hills.

Drain the GTX and remove the oil filter.

Refill with Castrol Formula R Synthetic 10W60 and fit a new oil filter.

Do leak down test, if OK then final tune on the dyno.

Go racing

Cheers

The results of a 2 min search of the forums

[STATUS]

well i like Penrite oil to i was going to use it....

just woundering what you guys have used....

haha penrite is recycled too. i think your a little confused, there is no point putting good oil in after a rebuild as you need the engine to bed in (wear-in). i am an advocate for good oil but not for running in.... trust us cheap shit for run-in gulf western, GTX etc is the BEST thing to put in your mega dollar build not some $100 boutique oil.

but seriously i have built $20,000 engines and run them in on gulf western.... and never had even one play up (build about 4-6 engines a month). Change filter after about 20-40mins of running. and top up. Put the good stuff in after about 600km and DO NOT BABY THE CAR, drive it normally but keep revs under control..

[NYTSKY]

haha penrite is recycled too. i think your a little confused, there is no point putting good oil in after a rebuild as you need the engine to bed in (wear-in). i am an advocate for good oil but not for running in.... trust us cheap shit for run-in gulf western, GTX etc is the BEST thing to put in your mega dollar build not some $100 boutique oil.

but seriously i have built $20,000 engines and run them in on gulf western.... and never had even one play up (build about 4-6 engines a month). Change filter after about 20-40mins of running. and top up. Put the good stuff in after about 600km and DO NOT BABY THE CAR, drive it normally but keep revs under control..

Hey Trent,what is the exact gulf Wester stuff that you use?

[STATUS]

Hey Trent,what is the exact gulf Wester stuff that you use?

haha its the whipping boy for large retail chains and sells for $9 for 4liters and on special i bought it for $4.95 for 4l needless to say i have a wall of gulf western for all my half finished and soon to be finished engines

rated for cars up to 1983 gotta love those credentials..... lol it is seriously no wonder oil it is just cheap and easy to find.

http://www.autobarn.com.au/products/10/68/4213846

[Chris_RB]

I'm another Castrol GTX kinda guy. fairly cheap, and works well..

[benm]

What is the best engine run in procedure for track cars (ie not road registered so cant be driven to Bathurst and back) ?

[FineLine]

Valvoline also do a specific run in oil and its not overly expensive. We do what most here do, 50/100 k on run in oil. dump the oil and filter. 500 k on a better oil then dump oil and filter again. and on to normal service intervals from there 3000k motul synthesis and filter.

As for running in race engines its harder than it used to be. We used to drop our drag v8s in to an old hk mule and follow the above procedure but it was a lot easier than doing it a modern import. only took about an hour or so to change an engine out.

Skylines etc area little more complicated than that. Best bet would be to take it to a time attack or similar and rather than race just use the track time to run the engine in.

Several builders I have spoken to claim that with modern materials engines dont have to be run is as such but i guess old habits die hard. It is also interesting to note that i have seen some of these engines fail prematurely for no good reason while the engines that have been run in correctly (to my way of thinking) are fine.

[Duncan]

BY far the best way to run in the motor on an unregistered car is a couple of hours on the dyno. Up until this one I had always gone along to practice days and the like and done as many laps as I could but you still get very few actual klm even at the best track days. and if you have trouble with the motor when you are at wakeifeld yo cant exactly pop by the local import performance shop and buy bits

[FineLine]

BY far the best way to run in the motor on an unregistered car is a couple of hours on the dyno. Up until this one I had always gone along to practice days and the like and done as many laps as I could but you still get very few actual klm even at the best track days. and if you have trouble with the motor when you are at wakeifeld yo cant exactly pop by the local import performance shop and buy bits

Who's payin the dyno bill Dunc?

[STATUS]

BY far the best way to run in the motor on an unregistered car is a couple of hours on the dyno. Up until this one I had always gone along to practice days and the like and done as many laps as I could but you still get very few actual klm even at the best track days. and if you have trouble with the motor when you are at wakeifeld yo cant exactly pop by the local import performance shop and buy bits

yeah agreed, i now include the run in procedure in the build cost and do it myself on the dyno, its very easy to put a few 100 kms on a motor safely and correctley.

[Beer Baron]

there are lots of pluses to running the motor in on the dyno and it can be done inside a full day. since you don't have to concentrate on actual driving you are more likely to quickly spot any trouble (like falling oil pres, or drop in fuel pres, or light det etc). and you can use the dyno to load it up as you need. the other upside of course is you are still in the workshop so if something does go wrong you are not half way to bathurst and 300kms from home and the parts you need.

and if something goes really wrong you don't have to wear a towie's bill on top of it all.

[dano4127]

haha its the whipping boy for large retail chains and sells for $9 for 4liters and on special i bought it for $4.95 for 4l needless to say i have a wall of gulf western for all my half finished and soon to be finished engines

rated for cars up to 1983 gotta love those credentials..... lol it is seriously no wonder oil it is just cheap and easy to find.

http://www.autobarn.com.au/products/10/68/4213846

Thats what i used to run in my 3L autobarn slack creek do it for $5 on and off thoughout the year when they buy in a bunch

it now lives on royal purple

Edited June 4, 2008 by dano4127

[Blitz]

I ran my engine in on mineral oil for around 500km's then switched to Castrol Formula R 10W60.

Took the car on some nice roads and bends while doing so, gave it a good load up and kept it to around 5000 rpm max.

[Sydneykid]

there are lots of pluses to running the motor in on the dyno and it can be done inside a full day. since you don't have to concentrate on actual driving you are more likely to quickly spot any trouble (like falling oil pres, or drop in fuel pres, or light det etc). and you can use the dyno to load it up as you need. the other upside of course is you are still in the workshop so if something does go wrong you are not half way to bathurst and 300kms from home and the parts you need.

and if something goes really wrong you don't have to wear a towie's bill on top of it all.

The problem I find with running in on the chassis dyno is heat, even with 2 dyno fans the gearbox gets stinking hot as does the diff and the tyres. There is simply not the same airflow in, under and around the car as there is when actually driving it. That and finding dyno time, or rather paying for it. If it's a track only car then we do a little running in while checking the initial tune, maybe 20 to 30 minutes. That also confirms that there isn't any infant mortality in the engine build. Then it's track time, there is always a track day on at EC or OP sometime during the week that it needs to be run in.

Chees

Gary

[Birds]

haha its the whipping boy for large retail chains and sells for $9 for 4liters and on special i bought it for $4.95 for 4l needless to say i have a wall of gulf western for all my half finished and soon to be finished engines

rated for cars up to 1983 gotta love those credentials..... lol it is seriously no wonder oil it is just cheap and easy to find.

http://www.autobarn.com.au/products/10/68/4213846

Sorry bout the thread revival, but I did a search on Gulf Western and this came up. Good old XMP. Nothing wrong with this one provided you are running in engines or your dinosaur from the 1980s consumes oil faster than it does fuel. It's minimum additive package oil...on par with GTX...but it's not as bad as the price implies. Just Autobarn's favourite loss leader (hence maximum of 2 or 3 per customer). I distribute for GW and these guys were selling it for cheaper than I can buy it direct from GW. All that said, as a distributor I don't like this oil for that reason...the price gives GW oil a bad name, when their premium oils are up there with the best IMO (of course I'm going to say that, I sell the stuff).

P.S. no GW oil is recycled, everything is 100% virgin and they'll put that in writing for you if you ask them nicely

As for running in, just make sure you use a no frills oil and don't baby it too much or thrash it too much IMO. It's always good to hand crank an engine before you start it for the first time...not just for timing/interference checking...but also to get some oil splashed around the place.

[Moodles2]

Lol I've got a exact same 4l bottle of that stuff sitting in my backyard (literally on the grass), it was meant to be used in a oilchange on my bomb of a n12 pulsar I owned at the time but it's been long sold and dunno what to do with it.. probably drop it off at a oil recycling place, never been opened (heack even the cap seal is still on haha)

[unique1]

so sort of off topic but how many people have done very limited km's and started power tuning within 100km or so? i have always done 1000km run ins and am building a stocker internal rb30 very soon and was gonna try out the build it and drive it for 50-100km and then straight into power tuning, whats the thoughts here ? as long as a leakdown comes up good i cant see why another 900km+ is needed.

any experiences on short run ins im keen on

[Swiper the Fox]

so sort of off topic but how many people have done very limited km's and started power tuning within 100km or so? i have always done 1000km run ins and am building a stocker internal rb30 very soon and was gonna try out the build it and drive it for 50-100km and then straight into power tuning, whats the thoughts here ? as long as a leakdown comes up good i cant see why another 900km+ is needed.

any experiences on short run ins im keen on

im an advocate for not babying an engine for too long before 'wicking it up'...we ran my latest engine in for about 2 hours loading it up and down on the dyno.

[unique1]

im an advocate for not babying an engine for too long before 'wicking it up'...we ran my latest engine in for about 2 hours loading it up and down on the dyno.

nice to hear so i was thinking along the lines of running shit oil (gtx, etc) for 100km of reasonable loading up driving but keeping it off full boost, then change oil over to proper good stuff at 100km if the leakdown shows up good, is this how u did it or did u do some power run stuff still running the cheap oil?

this new setup is damn hard to keep off boost being a 3076r on a 3L its making heaps of boost around 1800rpm+ unlike the other motor i ran in was easy as its not making anything till late 3800rpm+

I suppose a $500 cheap setup is the way to learn if run ins are needed anyway

[Birds]

I've heard theory along those lines...

Something about bedding all the moving parts in so they are used to heavy load, because apparently babying it for the run in and then driving hard will destroy them quicker.

Personally I stick with the happy medium.