New FJR Breakin

Hope this isn't one of those "can of worm" subjects like what kind of oil should I use, but I am curious as I am picking up a new 2007 FJR at D&H this Friday. How many followed factory breakin proceedures or used "Motoman" or other breakin techniques. D&H said using high (above 4000) during breakin will result in a noiser engine.

roadlizard said:

Hope this isn't one of those "can of worm" subjects like what kind of oil should I use, ...(snip)

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It is. You won't get a definitive answer. People who have done it either way are happy with the results.

Yamaha FJR1300 Break-in

VERY IMPORTANT -- Get the bike up to operating temps first.

Using 1/2 throttle, run from 4,000 to 6,000 rpm, then roll the throttle off completely until the rpms drop back to 4,000. Do this in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Ride normally for a few miles.

Using 3/4 throttle, run from 4,000 to 7,500 rpm, then roll the throttle off completely until the rpms drop back to 4,000. Do this in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Ride normally for a few miles.

Using full throttle, run from 3,000 to redline, then roll the throttle off completely until the rpms drop back to 3,000. Do this in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Ride normally for a few miles.

After 20 miles on the odometer, change the oil and oil filter, using "normal" petroleum oil (not synthetic). Let the bike cool down for at least 1/2 hour before riding again.

Ride the bike for another hour, followed by another complete cooldown.

https://www.fjr1300.info/breakin.html

Ride it like you stole it!

Geezer said:

It is. You won't get a definitive answer. People who have done it either way are happy with the results.

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+1

BTW, Motoman break-in falls within the vague Yamaha break-in instructions as given in the owner's manual. And as for Jerold at D&H, he does the FJR community a great service, and sells FJRs at a great price and provides excellent customer service, but he has in the past provided some questionable technical advice.

In the end, do whatever gives you a warm fuzzy.

Geezer said:

roadlizard said:

Hope this isn't one of those "can of worm" subjects like what kind of oil should I use, ...(snip)

Click to expand...

It is. You won't get a definitive answer. People who have done it either way are happy with the results.

Click to expand...

+1, lots of worms here. There is a large number of people with heart-felt convictions that Yamaha doesn't know how to properly specify engine break-in so they brew their own methods. Or, they feel the break-in is entirely to restrictive. I've never read or seen anything that shows that any method has hurt their engine or shortened the life of the engine. I won't even mention that break in also effects the rest of the drive train too. After riding your new FJR during break-in, stop and feel the temperature of the rear gear housing -- be careful and don't burn yourself.

There is the old racer's adage, "Break it in fast to be fast." (However, racers frequently tear down their vehicles for maintenance and repair.)

[Edit: Boy was I slow, lots of replys between when I clicked Reply and actually posted!]

I think "break in" is much ado about nothing with modern machines like FJR's. They're pretty much ready to race right out of the box but the best way to weed out a lemon is to ride it hard right away. If it's prone to failure you want it to fail under warranty. Just be careful what you say to the dealer if you end up with a warranty claim. Ride it like you stole it.

evil_henchman said:

Ride it like you stole it.

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+1

Oh ****, don't get me started. Again. <_<

Where's Iggy with his +Motor +Break-in +Procedure crack... Speaking of crack, we should have a crack button for just such posts.

Just ride it.

Nice Rumble said:

Yamaha FJR1300 Break-in


VERY IMPORTANT -- Get the bike up to operating temps first.

Using 1/2 throttle, run from 4,000 to 6,000 rpm, then roll the throttle off completely until the rpms drop back to 4,000. Do this in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Ride normally for a few miles.

Using 3/4 throttle, run from 4,000 to 7,500 rpm, then roll the throttle off completely until the rpms drop back to 4,000. Do this in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Ride normally for a few miles.

Using full throttle, run from 3,000 to redline, then roll the throttle off completely until the rpms drop back to 3,000. Do this in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Ride normally for a few miles.

After 20 miles on the odometer, change the oil and oil filter, using "normal" petroleum oil (not synthetic). Let the bike cool down for at least 1/2 hour before riding again.

Ride the bike for another hour, followed by another complete cooldown.

https://www.fjr1300.info/breakin.html

Click to expand...

Great link. Thanks!

The theory behind the Motoman break in proceedure is that extremely high cylinder pressures generated by running a new engine up to redline over and over again will produce superior piston ring seal. That (again theoretically) results in an engine that makes more horsepower than one broken in by more gentle conventional methods. Motoman says that the low tension piston rings that most modern motorcyle engines use require high cylinder pressures to seat properly. Since engines like the one that is near and dear to all of us use ceramic coated bores, Motoman says that it is the rings that must conform to the bores, the opposite of what occurred in engines of yesteryear. Maybe.

I would love to see a well designed experiment to settle this issue once and for all. To do that you would need a statistically significant number of the same motocycles half of which would be broken in using strict factory reccommendation proceedures. The other half would be broken in on a racetrack using the Motoman protocol. After break in, all bikes would be dyno tested and the average HP of each group would be determined. If there is a statistically significant difference favoring the Motoman proceedure, I'm a believer.

Even if the Motoman method produces an engine that makes more power, are there negative effects of running a new bike that hard on other drivetrain components? Nobody knows for sure. One thing everybody on this forum agrees on is that oil and filters are relatively inexpensive and that it can't hurt to change both frequently during your bikes first few hundred miles. Me personally, I'm of the "just ride it" school. Something between factory and Motoman seems prudent until we have some hard evidence one way or the other.

Spinner said:

I would love to see a well designed experiment to settle this issue once and for all. To do that you would need a statistically significant number of the same motocycles half of which would be broken in using strict factory reccommendation proceedures. The other half would be broken in on a racetrack using the Motoman protocol. After break in, all bikes would be dyno tested and the average HP of each group would be determined. If there is a statistically significant difference favoring the Motoman proceedure, I'm a believer.

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HP is not a good way to determine if a motor got a proper break-in. Factory race teams deliberately run a looser tolerance in their motors to gain a few HP but this doesn't necessarily mean that this would be good for the longevity of a street machine. They rebuild the motor in their bikes before each race.

jestal said:

Just ride it.

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But don't change to synthetic oil until the bike comes to a full and complete stop, or you might ruin the motor.

...something to add to FAQs. Just ride the damn thing.

1st - Drain the oil out of the bike cold. Don't heat the engine up first, this will help drain the impurities out of your oil.

2nd - Replace oil with male cat pee. Female cat pee does not have the appropriate viscosity to properly lube. Also, tabby tends to be better than persian.

This one will do.



3rd - Drain the coolant. Replace coolant with Kool-Aid. I mean look at this guy, he's cool. He will even hold ice cubes on your engine to keep the heat below 3 bars.



4th - Don't beleive everything you read on the internet......

evil_henchman said:

I think "break in" is much ado about nothing with modern machines like FJR's. They're pretty much ready to race right out of the box but the best way to weed out a lemon is to ride it hard right away. If it's prone to failure you want it to fail under warranty. Just be careful what you say to the dealer if you end up with a warranty claim. Ride it like you stole it.

Click to expand...

+1 more, except new modern engine or new old time engine, the rings still need to seat. How about, screw the science, theory and hog wash and apply some common sense. Don't bury it in the red zone during the first hour on the road. Don't sit on 4K rpms (or any other fixed rpm) for hours at a pop, vary the r's a bit. Do run it up to near red line occasionally after you have a few miles on it but not like you were at the drags. IMO, you don't have to cane it, but you don't have to baby it either. Those rings "should" be well seated by 1000 miles and you don't have to walk on egg shells for that to happen.

Spinner said:

I would love to see a well designed experiment to settle this issue once and for all.

Click to expand...

I have seen such experiments with automotive engines and there is basically no difference in the long run. The harder the engine is run the quicker it will "break in" but I have never seen any evidence that a harder breakin would lead to more power in comparison to a more gentle break in.

The main thing that "seats" with the rings is the ring burnishing itself against the side of the ring lands in the pistons. That is important for ring seal. As far as the ring seating to the cylinder wall....ahh....well....it doesn't really happen like that. The rings will scrape away any high material on the cylinder wall (we are talking microscopic "high" spots) and burnish the cylinder wall a bit but that all happens very quickly at low or high loads. Beyond that, the rings constantly move and rotate on the piston itself so the notion of the ring "mating" to a particular spot on the cylinder wall is in error. At high RPM the rings are constantly rotating on the piston, slowly turning round and round. They do not contact the same swatch of cylinder wall over and over again unless something is wrong.

The ring face changes very very very little during breakin. There might be some very tiny material removal but it is completely insignificant. Look at rings under a microscope that have run breakin for hours and hours and the ring face is virtually unscathed. Nothing really "breaks in" there either.

The single most significant thing that happens is the ring burnishing to the side of the ring land in the piston as mentioned. In terms of physical evidence this is very easy to see if you study the piston ring lands carefully. On some engines with hard anodized top ring lands the ring land burnishing or mating can take a lot of load and time which would play into the "moto-man" breakin schedule a little bit but it really doesn't take anything that extreme to get the job done.

The more effective breakin procedures involve changing RPM as well as load. A procedure like running the engine up from 3000 to 6000 in one gear under moderate load and then releasing the throttle and allowing the engine braking to bring the speed back down. Repeat this load/unload cycle while letting the RPM vary constantly will exercise the rings for good breakin to the pistons.

You really do have to understand the particular engine and how it is constructed to make good decisions about break in procedure. As with a lot of things there is no single best procedure for all engines. There are some engines that could easily suffer internal damage from a "moto-man" style breakin procedure so I would be very hesitant to take that type of break in as gospel.

I know this is a bike forum...but....a lot of the older muscle car engines had distributors and distributor gears that engage the cam and oil pumps that are driven by the distributor gear. Those right angle gears are highly loaded, have a LOT of sliding contact, rely heavily on antiwear additives in the oil and are VERY sensitive to breakin. It is very easy to overload one during an agressive breakin procedure and scuff it resulting in eventual failure. Those types of gears will double and enen triple their load bearing capability with breakin due to the gear contact faces burnishing. Couple that with a heavy duty or high volume hot rod oil pump and it is very easy to tear the distributor gear up during a high rpm run immediately after startup. Lay off the moto-man breakin on those engines.

Deleted

Spinner said:

The theory behind the Motoman break in proceedure is that extremely high cylinder pressures generated by running a new engine up to redline over and over again will produce superior piston ring seal. That (again theoretically) results in an engine that makes more horsepower than one broken in by more gentle conventional methods. Motoman says that the low tension piston rings that most modern motorcyle engines use require high cylinder pressures to seat properly. Since engines like the one that is near and dear to all of us use ceramic coated bores, Motoman says that it is the rings that must conform to the bores, the opposite of what occurred in engines of yesteryear. Maybe.
I would love to see a well designed experiment to settle this issue once and for all. To do that you would need a statistically significant number of the same motocycles half of which would be broken in using strict factory reccommendation proceedures. The other half would be broken in on a racetrack using the Motoman protocol. After break in, all bikes would be dyno tested and the average HP of each group would be determined. If there is a statistically significant difference favoring the Motoman proceedure, I'm a believer.

Even if the Motoman method produces an engine that makes more power, are there negative effects of running a new bike that hard on other drivetrain components? Nobody knows for sure. One thing everybody on this forum agrees on is that oil and filters are relatively inexpensive and that it can't hurt to change both frequently during your bikes first few hundred miles. Me personally, I'm of the "just ride it" school. Something between factory and Motoman seems prudent until we have some hard evidence one way or the other.

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Great info.......so quickly the consensus comes back as usual....ride it and change the oil often.....

I just made a similiar thread asking the same question (redundancy is re-curring) but when I am excited about getting the bike, some extra questions may get thrown out.....Ignacio pointed out my redundancy, I will try to work with the search engine more......

but thanks none the less......