Suzuki RG500 GAMMA

From rustie@earthlink.net Tue Oct 14 06:22 MET 1997
Subject: Break-In info

The best way to "break-in" any new piston engine is to NOT baby it by
keeping the RPM under some manufacturer's "magical limit". Have you ever
heard the line "if you don't break it in hard, it will never run hard?"
Well, there is quite a bit of merit to this statement once all the reasons
are fully understood.

I'm sure that we can all agree that THE ONLY WAY any piston engine "breaks
in" is by wearing off and polishing any and all the high spots to make a
perfect, custom, low friction fit between all the important parts. Time
alone at reduced RPM WILL NOT ACCOMPLISH THIS! It takes MAX RPM for all the
parts to make contact that would NOT normally contact and wear-in at some
reduced RPM level. The best method for this to occur is to run the engine
right up to the manufacturers listed "red line", BUT with the LEAST LOAD
POSSIBLE (remember load = heat and NEW pistons DO NOT like excessive heat!).

How do you do this? Well, with any vehicle that has a gearbox, it's real
easy. When the bike/vehicle is brand new, you begin a series of low load,
HIGH RPM runs (right up to red line), but ONLY in FIRST GEAR. This gives
the verrry necessary "high RPM wear-in" for the pistons and "max gas
pressure" on the rings to press them into the cylinder wall so they can
seat WITHOUT high load/heat. This first gear high RPM blast will only last
a second or so, max. DO NOT be tempted to run through all the gears on a
new bike or rebuilt engine - WAY TOO MUCH LOAD = HEAT! In fact, it's well
known that if you DO hold WOT on your new bike in top gear, the
piston-to-wall clearance can actually approach a PRESS FIT!!! As the milage
rolls up on your bike/vehicle, you can create higher load by simply going
UP into the next gear and grab WOT, to your max RPM "redline". What I
normally suggest is that you perform a "WOT first gear blast" about every
20 miles or so until you reach 100 to 150 miles. A "WOT second gear blast"
will obviously take longer (about 2 seconds) because of the taller gear and
more load. This should be performed at about the same intervals as the
"first gear blasts" and continued until around 500 miles. Continuing with
the above WOT and "next highest gear" senario is pretty much up to the
individual and is not completely written in stone as to how fast to
progress through all the gears, but completion of all 5 or 6 WOT-gear runs
should be within 1500 to 2000 miles. The total number of "break-in miles"
will depend on your type of cylinder wall - iron, chrome, nickasil or
others (very subjective here). Chrome and nickasil can take more abuse and
will usually stand up to more aggressive WOT applications before they seat
completely. Iron usually seats relatively fast.

Equally important is an occasional COMPLETE COOLING OFF about every 100
miles or so. This is VERRRY important to help "heat cycle" and "season" the
various high temp engine components. If you want to know the WORST WAY to
break in an engine, just follow the manufacturers suggestions TO THE LETTER
by keeping your engine under some "magical RPM limit" and continue to
upshift all the way into 5th or 6th to prevent exceeding this "contrived
RPM limit" while adding a little more throttle to keep up the pace with
traffic (or your buddies!). You can easily see that you will eventually
begin to lug the engine which is ABSOLUTELY THE WORST THING you could do to
your new ride or re-build. With this senario, you will quickly get into
that "operational press fit" situation I described above - possibly
damaging your engine. So - LET IT REV!!! (within the above guide lines of
course). Rustie-----

Rob Koopman ( Rob.Koopman@inter.NL.net ) ^{RG500 Index}