Originally Posted By: SilverFusion2010
I'm in the change it early camp. After lots of reading I came to several conclusions.
#1 Whether you change it early or not, it's gonna work fine. The majority of vehicles on the road had absolutely nothing special done to them. Oil was changed at factory intervals, mom hauled the kids to practice, dad took the boat fishing etc etc. If you dump the oil at 5k and use a decent oil and filter after that the engine should last as long as the car will.
#2 How you drive the first few hundred miles matters way more than any other factor during the break in period. This is the only chance you get to make the piston rings seal as perfectly as possible. How do you do this? You have to make the rings wear against the cylinder walls so the two surfaces "marry". The compression rings in particular are important, better compression seal means more efficient combustion, less blow by and overall a better running engine. What forces the rings against the cylinder wall in the first place? Cylinder pressure gets behind the ring and forces it against the cylinder wall. More pressure = more friction between ring and cylinder wall (honing pattern). What controls cylinder pressure? Throttle!!!
IMO an ideal break in would go something like this:
drive normally varying speeds as much as possible, keep your foot to 1/2 max throttle, for about 20 min. This is what I think of as the "initial" wear period
once the engine is at operating temp and you've got the oil warmed up, start gradually increasing your acceleration cycles until you're making WOT runs. Downshift to slow down rather than cook your brakes. The vacuum generated with the engine braking helps the little bits and pieces move on out. Obviously you want to obey traffic laws, so think carefully about where you will go to run the engine hard. That's the core of it. a nice country road with some good twisties is a great place to work in an engine.... mountain pass type stuff. A nice lightly traveled piece of interstate where you can bounce between 40 and 80 in 3rd gear.
You can do this several times. ALWAYS LET THE ENGINE WARM UP COMPLETELY!!!!
somewhere between 750-1000 miles change the factory fill, and proceed to drive however you want. If you worked the rings in properly you should have an engine with very low oil consumption, and minimal blow-by.
I shall now retire to my baked-potato flame proof tent
I've done this on all the bikes and cars I got from new, still hear superior performance (measured) from them, plus near-zero oil consumption