Leaderboard

Just my observation and 2 cents worth. On a diesel like the Cummins 5.9 I don't think "break in" is necessarily a matter of the number of miles driven. Yes, I agree there is some break in or run in on the initial start up and hours of run time immediately after but to properly break in and seat the rings and other wear components in the engine completely, I believe the engine needs to be run under significant (not extremely heavy) load. That could be a cross country run with a loaded trailer. In my case, a sugar barrel run (I will load about 3,000 lbs. of sugar) The heavier load will allow the turbo charger to maintain a more even and consistent boost level, loaded egt, and the wear components in the engine will obviously wear differently under significant load as opposed to running empty or no load. Short bursts of high load will not accomplish this and are not even beneficial in the break in process. Gradually easing into a sustained, moderately heavy load on the engine is the best way to break in, in my opinion. Not more than 20 psi of boost sustained and keep an eye on EGT to keep below the 900 degree range and of course and good cross check of coolant temperature and oil pressure is a must in addition to fuel pressure. Once you have accomplished this you can switch to synthetic since you already have dino oil in the engine. I think break in can be accomplished with either type of oil. Many engine manufacturers are now recommending selling new vehicles with synthetic oil in a brand new engine.

Just a thought..... If you do go down the road to a new VP44, maybe look at installing a fuel pressure gauge. That will help you catch any future problems and offer some insurance to your new IP.

I love it when people all think rings have to "Seat" They run on a micro film of oil in the cylinder liners via splash lube or cooling nozzles ect, when the cross hatch disappears and they get excessive blow by and or use oil is when they have officially "seated" which is then ring to cyl wall contact with little to no oil film left or dirty oil or dirt through the air intake has caused wear to the ring and cylinder ect which is what cause the engine cylinders to wear, there is no Seating of rings, bad misnomer old wives tale. If one thinks every engine on the planet gets babied for days and week that goes back to "Work" then there would be no use to rebuild they would just buy new. All equipment gets warmed up to full temp checked out and maybe run on a dyno with a slight load in some cases then thrown back into full load service. Heat is the enemy of new engines and why all run and require syn versus dyno more stable and better lube characteristics with the extreme temps new rigs run due to emissions standards and tight tolerances and also syn oil will be a lot cleaner out of the jug than dino, if anyone ever looked at the bottom of a dyno oil jug or quart that has sat for a while would be horrified to see the natural silt sediment which has settled out of it, not good for todays tight tolerance engines. Also Heat is the friend in breaking in a freshly built engine as Live oak pointed out.

Sorry the video is sideways. The tst is NOT on. You can hear my brother ask if I kicked it on. I went all the way to 3200rpm on all shifts. You can see it lets out a puff of smoke in 3rd, then clears up for the rest of the run. It's nice being able to shift fast again without grinding!