Breaking in a new bike engine

reece

Hi Folks,
picking up a new bike tommorrow. looking for some advice on breaking in the engine. Any advice gladly welcome.

Dorsanty

Read the manual.

Seriously though, the manual will have a do 6000km or so under X thousand rpm and then do first service. After that you are free to rev to your hearts content. Also if the people selling you the bike know anything they'll tell you those instructions too.

Edit : What make and model? Anything that could make us jealous?

reece

somebody was saying something about the first 20 miles being important and then the next 480. Bandit 650

KamiKazi

The dealer you buy it from should know better than anyone else TBH. Failing that it should be in the manual.

Heard the latest BMW had to be limited via ecu to under the RPM limit for the break in period because of excessive engine wear, crazy stuff.

antiskeptic

reece wrote: »

Hi Folks,
picking up a new bike tommorrow. looking for some advice on breaking in the engine. Any advice gladly welcome.

There'll be articles on line about it and opinion varies (with, I gather, harsher sounding breaking in's leading to more power output). The general advice however is to

a) limit the revs for the first 1000km or so (raising the limit bit by bit: first hundred (max 50% of sub-redline revs), second 300 (max 60% of sub-redline revs), third 600 (80% of sub-red-line revs) then you're off and running). These are limits - not revs you want to maintain for long bursts - especially in the beginning. Brief period only at these limits - just as would be the case when the bike is run in.

b) not putting the engine under heavy loads - especially in the first 400km. So avoid heavy acceleration/two up riding/steep hills - even if remaining under the rev limit you're running at.

c) keeping the engine running freely by not changing up too soon. Avoid trying to accelerate from low speeds without changing down.

You don't have to be terrified you'll damage things if you go a bit over the limit or load the engine by picking the occasional wrong gear.

Enjoy..

RosieJoe

Best of luck reece, and well wear

BTW, from the Bandit Service manual:

BREAK-lN PROCEDURES
During manufacture only the best possible materials are used and all machined parts are finished to a very
high standard but it is still necessary to allow the moving parts to “BREAK-IN” before subjecting the engine
to maximum stresses. The future performance and reliability of the engine depends on the care and restraint
exercised during its early life. The general rules are as follows.
• Keep to these break-in engine speed limits:
Initial 800 km : Below 6 000 r/min
Up to 1 600 km : Below 9 000 r/min
Over 1 600 km : Below 12 000 r/min
• Upon reaching an odometer reading of 1 600 km you can subject the motorcycle to full throttle operation.
However, do not exceed 12 000 r/min at any time.

Interceptor

Do whatever the people in the shop tell you. Drive it normally and get it serviced when the manual says so. There is no magic involved to running in a modern engine - just don't be doing burnouts before its first service.

On a side note, BMW have started putting electronic limiters on new S1000RR's to prevent them being driven too hard causing early engine failure before the first service at 1500kms.

A Bandit 650 will not have this problem...

'cptr