Engine break in time for 2007

Hi guys. Picked up a new 07 last week and the salesman wasn't very informative about how to break in the engine. HE said to keep the bike under 120mph. sounds like a stupid answer to me.

I know that riding slow in high gear is bad. Would you recommend riding at higher rpm for a while?

any speed limitations?

I have about 200 miles on the bike already!

Any advise would be appreciated! :biggrin:

PS. I flew to Chester County airport in PA today. You guys seems to have nice curvy roads to ride. Seems to be that way anyway from up there. Im jealous. South FL isnt great besides cruising the beach.

 

Break in period

1st 600 miles keep it under 6000rpm, no continuous ridng at high or low speeds.perform 600 mile service. Step 3, Go nuts. It should be in your owners manual that no one reads.

 

owners manual should be read?!? I thought that was for weight and balance under the seat. :wink: Should have brought it on the road with me this week...

thanks for the reply. That's basically what I have been doing. Went a couple of times to 8000 rpm to "feel and hear" the famous vtec though. Hopefully, I didn't shoot my self in the foot by doing that!

Should be at STEP 3 in a couple of weeks!

Do you know what the 600 miles service consist of?

Thanks again!

 

Your owners manual will say... ride it however you want without hard (hi load) starts (translated). There are a million schools of thought on the subject. I would follow the manual which is fairly liberal. But do change your oil a couple times more than recommended in the 1st 1000.

 

This is another hotly contested subject. Do yourself a favor and do a google search on this and you'll get lots of contrasting ideas. But, the Manual is VERY vague on the issue...no full throttle accelerations and do not lug the engine...that is about it. (About the only thing I haven't seen recommended is replacing the oil with soy sauce and sesame oil...)

 

Thanks Jason

 

ya man, here are the exact words...

 

at least if she started to leak it may not smell half bad... :biggrin:

 

My vfr I bought used. But before that I had a Honda cb600f hornet, that I purchased new from the dealer. They told me 600 miles easy, don't floor it, and keep the revs below 6k. At 600 miles change the oil and filter. After that you should be good. I believe my owners manual on that bike said 300 mile break-in. But doesn't hurt to go a few extra hundred miles. Allows a little more life out of the bike. I had racked up 12,000 miles that year before selling it and never had any issues with the motor. Good luck.

 

Lug the engine? please explain

Like I said, I went a few times around 8000 rpm at starts. I went really easy the rest of the times without any hard accelerations.

I'm glad you mentioned soy sauce. That almost crossed my mind. Speaking of oil, any of you uses synthetic oil? Is it actually a possibility for this bike?

Thanks for all the quick replies.

 

Good one. yep a hot topic for sure, feel the heat yet? Almost as hot as Oil and Tire threads. I'll behave on this one

 

At 200 miles, your engine is pretty much broken in. It does not take long at all. As Jason Smith pointed out, the manual says that the break-in period is 300 miles which you can be assured is more than enough miles as the factory will always error on the high side. The key is to not ride at any rpm for a sustained period of time. Go up to VTEC, but don't stay there long. I changed my oil and filter at 300 miles, then again at 600 miles. I put a semi-synthetic in at the 300 miles mark and have never looked back. These bikes are bullet proof. Back in my MX days, if you had to rebuild a bike at the track, the rings were seated by the time the motor warmed up. Like I said, the process happens literally in the first few miles.

 

Ride it like you're going to ride it. DO NOT BABY IT! Don't overheat it, and it'll be quite happy.


Lane

 

break in

I'm going through the same break in phase. I have about 250 miles on my 07 rwb. I'm old school and am taking it easy only hit the 7 grand once or twice.
The bikes a blast even without pushing it. I got the dealer to do the 600 mile service for free. They messed up my paperwork and if I didn't like the bike so much they would have had it back.
Now if I could just quit reaching for that 7th gear....

 

NJA..."Lugging" the engine: letting the rpms fall to a too-low level in any given gear...such as slowing down and letting the rpms drop really low in 3rd gear and then accelerating away without dropping to 2nd or 1st. The engine kinda bucks at you...glub, glub, glub. It is never good for a motor but especially bad when breaking in an engine. Properly cycling the engine through warm ups (and avoiding overheating), and always varying the rpms are the biggies when breaking in an engine properly.

For a look at the OTHER side of break-in, check out:
www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

 

Hi. I definitely don't lug. Also, I use engine breaking 99% of the time to stop.

Very interesting article about the break in secrets. Now I'm home so I can finally read that owners manual and compare.

If I get this right, I'm basically done with engine break-in by having driven almost 200 miles already. hopefully I did it right.

Thanks for all the replies!

 

That is another hotly contested concept...when is the break-in period over? Some say 200-300 miles and then some folks say 3000 miles. I have seen more bike manufacturers say 1000 miles (Kawasaki and KTM are my experiences and they have that 1k figure as the magic number.) Me? I think 600-800 miles but what the H*%% do I know?!!

 

ive had 14 motorcycles and never had any engine troulbe after break in. let engine warm up baby it around town no more then 6 grand mix up your riding highway country around town but dont let it get hot heat is the enemy. i chained my oil and filter base oil at 300 honda hp then at 600 golden spectro base oil. after that change i change it once a year about 2k miles book says 8k miles per oil change so does shop manuel get that book tells all enginers in shop manuel tell what is reccommended follow it no worries after all it is a honda vfr one of the most reliable bikes ever built.. vfr world rocks!!

 

Congrats on the RWB - nice choice!

Like many have said, no long-steady RPM rides, and keep below VTEC for first 200-300 miles, then do 1st fluid change. Ride normally next 300 or so miles and do next fluid change to whatever you plan on using for future changes. I went to Repsol stuff from my 600 mile fluid change.

Yes, Chester County has some very nice twisty back roads without hordes of cars to deal with but also not a whole lot of nice straights to open it up a bit on, of well - have to take the good with the bad :tongue:

 

I agree, I've had close to 200 bikes in my life time & I have found that to break in a bike & have a broke in already bike is to let it warm up properly & to ride it like your going to for the rest of it's life.

Your bike is broken in after the 1st 20 to 50 miles, if the rings hasn't set by then, they never will !

Change the oil often, follow the maintanace schedule & other than the electrical should run forever (it's a Honda).

The best way to break in a bike is have it dyno'd broken in, kinda tuff on your new tyre but it will be broken in properly 6 out of 6 I've had thisd done the bike p/u up 2 to 4 hp over a bike that was broken in riding it !:biggrin:

The cool thing about the dyno break in is then you can go have your 1st service done & your good to go !
More & more shops are offering this & the smarter riders/owners are taking advantage of it.

p.s.
congrats on your new purchase & Welcome :wink: