Any informed/educated thoughts on engine break in? I ran across what appears to be a pretty strange procedure at: http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm. I tend to think this is a bit on the extreme side.

Thanks

The one point he is right about is changing the oil.First fifty is a good idea and then at the five hundred is what I did as well as at the "stealership" when they did the 1,000 mile service.From then on it's been synthetic and changed every 2,500 miles.Might seem like overkill but I followed H.D.'s break in procedures to the letter and with almost 9,000 on the odometer now,bike run's excellant.I don't think I would have the heart to "whip" a brand new bike during that time.Just does'nt seem like common sense to me.

The Mototune recommendation comes up a couple of times a year. To many, his recommendation seems extreme. However, when it comes to bedding in piston rings, I have to agree with his procedure. If you baby a break in you run the risk of not getting the rings to bed in well. Up and down through the rpms and gears, never hold a constant speed, and give it quite a bit of throttle and then let the gearing slow the engine is a great way to bed the rings in. I wouldn't recommend you take a brand new engine out and rev it to it's redline within the first 50 miles or so anymore than I would recommend that you fire up a new engine and let it sit and idle in your garage for 20 minutes. An engine breaks in a lot quicker than most think. The first 20 minutes the engine runs does a major portion of the break in.

For those who are doing simple 1200 conversions....keep in mind all you are doing is bedding in your new rings into your new cylinders.

To each is his own, but I have seen good results from the technique spelled out on the mototune website.

I tend to agree with Shu on this especially concerning a conversion. When I did my conversion I didn't baby it much except for changing oil often.

[ Up and down through the rpms and gears, never hold a constant speed, and give it quite a bit of throttle and then let the gearing slow the engine is a great way to bed the rings in. I wouldn't recommend you take a brand new engine out and rev it to it's redline within the first 50 miles or so For those who are doing simple 1200 conversions....keep in mind all you are doing is bedding in your new rings into your new cylinders. ]

After researching, mototune was one place I pretty much did as shu & stevo suggest to 50 miles, changed the oil then pretty much just rode her like normal. Hit the rev limit{6000} at that time a couple times in the next 100 or so, just a quick run up and let her coast back down. after the next oil change, 250 on the moter I started riding a little more aggressive, but never really flogged her till after about 750 miles on the conversion. after the first oil change I noted a slight bit of oil in the ham can, with a little spray on the oil tank, but after 3000 miles a napkin/ob pad put in the ham can at oil change{3000 mi} more than soaks that up. She is a Girl after all. no moor oil spray no other fixs {YET}

I'll second that, I have no oil blowby out of my head breathers whatsoever. She is always clean. I have heard a lot of comments from those who have broken their engines in on the aggressive side and they typically do not have the oil in the ham can problem that others do.

I broke mine in the mototune way also and I've been very pleased with performance and next to no blow-by.

Break in periods are not as crucial as they were when machine tolerances were not as close as they are today. I say drive it like you'll ride after its broke in in other words baby it some but not too muchh :bump this of course is my personal opinion :smoke

Thanks for all the input. I'm waiting on my price quote for a softail.

do a search of the site... this topic has been up a few times

That is one helluva site. Ill read more of it as time goes by. Can't say I disagree with anything he says so far.

WOT till you see god , then brake