Thoughts On A Cold Oil Change.

Absolutely. The "thrash it from the start" approach will certainly get it done quicker and is used to quickly bed in race engines where longevity is not so important as in road stuff. A "soft" run-in is a mistake IMO and can lead to glazed bores, among other things, that will reduce compression and increase oil consumption. I seem to remember some early Z1000J engines had high oil consumption problems which was put down to bore glazing during run-in. Modern engines are built to much tighter tolerances now than they ever were, they have to be to deliver the power and reliability we have all come to expect. Running in is just a cycle of loading/unloading the engine without over stressing it and avoiding temperature spikes.

 

I really don’t understand the “run it in hard” approach but nor does the “don’t do it too soft” advice garner much empathy with me either.
Forums are full of folks with their own personal theories but often based on a chasm of missing knowledge.
I keep asking myself who to believe, an anonymous keyboard warrior or the research, design, production and development engineers who manufactured my bike?? Hmm!! - let me think about that one!
The instructions for running in are fairly straight forward and easy enough to follow - It’s personal choice at the end of the day but what is so terrribly wrong with just adhering to the manufacturer’s guidelines??

 

I totally agree with Alan Gilbert, personally manufactures don't spend huge amounts of money on development and testing of machines for nothing, me I go with what they advise and haven't had any issues with excessive oil consumption etc.

 

There's a big difference between riding the bike though the entire rev range putting on load in different gears and being a total prat and bouncing it off the rev limiter

 

Two points. Firstly when draining oil (I've not seen this suggested elsewhere) as a matter of course after draining the sump I spin the engine over on the starter for a few seconds - not starting the engine - to get the oil pump to eject old oil which is in it and the oil galleries . This usually amounts to more than you'd think.
Secondly I think running in means being sympathetic to the engine but giving occasional bursts of hard acceleration but not necessarily high revs, to help bed in piston rings. There is quite a lot of information elsewhere on the web about the benefit of this technique for bedding rings and to minimise long term oil consumption.

 

not sure how you spin the engine over without starting it, unless you disconnect or remove the spark plugs but either way that is a very bad idea - most likely why you’ve not come across it anywhere.
First of all, there is absolutely no point or need to remove every last drop of oil and secondly, it will only cause damage to expose the engine to mechanical stresses without oil being pumped to the bearings under pressure - please don’t anyone do this!!!
As for running in, yes - there is plenty written on the web by all and sundry and a great deal of bilge and nonsense - why believe these anonymous pseudo sages when the manual for your particular bike should be your primary source of reference. If you use it, you won’t go wrong . . . .

 

Draining the oil pump and galleries by spinning the engine is not a practise I'll be adopting any time soon. The only time you should have a dry pump and galleries is after an engine rebuild or maybe a pump replacement. Engines are (or should) be rebuilt using some form of assembly compound to guard against this and protect components during the vital few seconds before pressure build up. Why would you want to subject the engine to this at every oil & filter change?
Running in procedure in the owner's manual for just about every new vehicle I've owned merely gives an initial rev limit, advises against lugging the engine with low revs in high gears and avoid prolonged full throttle operation.
One other personal preference I have is to do the first running in period, 500/600 miles or whatever, in 3-4 long runs rather than a few dozen shorter ones. Not seen this recommended anywhere, I just think it's the best way of doing it.

 

Ever considerate dude!

 

Being one of those people who has actually built and run in dozens of motorcycle engines and a few car I i still maintain that people can be very stupid when it comes to running in a motor i have explained the procedure of varying loads and RPM gradually building the work load but still seen some disasters as a result of the way its been run in.

Running in a motor properly takes mechanical sympathy and some just have no idea in fact i would say most if you have it you can feel how a motor is behaving and if its stressed or a bit tight at certain loads this is why and how racers of old and today (Via technicians on a RR and a laptop) got away with thrashing a motor in along with slightly looser tolerances.

Today's engines are built to higher (and not necessary tighter) tolerances and better materials and combined with today's far superior oils running in today is a much quicker affair with much less chance of the end user coming to grief in fact some are not supplied with any kind of running in instructions because of this....basically they are designed and made to deal with idiots.

As for the ides of spinning a motor void of oil as per @Flay with no oil to renter the oil pump your are basically injecting air into the pump and oil galleries and even at turnover speeds (engine not running)there is still quite heavy loading on a lot of the mechanical parts valve train being the most loaded at low engine speeds so i would desist from this practice as it wont do the engine any favors.

If a oil system and oil is working as designed all of the potentially harmful metal particles with be in suspension oil is designed that way and this will be all caught in the filter anything large enough to settle in the sump means there is a problem and in any case removing the sump drain will not always result in the removal of said debris and anything that is still in suspension in the oil after the oil filter should be far to small to cause any appreciable wear or we would all have micron filters and 500PSI oil pumps.

So drain the sump remove the sump drain hot or cold use a pump change oil every 1,0000 miles or at the recommended mileage i doubt you will find much difference....i wonder how many have actually had oil analyzed after a certain mileage i did on a high powers tuned turbo engine after just 3.000 miles and the suspended metal was negligible. ....just my take on the subject.

 

As for the ides of spinning a motor void of oil as per @Flay with no oil to renter the oil pump your are basically injecting air into the pump and oil galleries and even at turnover speeds (engine not running)there is still quite heavy loading on a lot of the mechanical parts valve train being the most loaded at low engine speeds so i would desist from this practice as it wont do the engine any favors.

You go out for a 10 hour ride on your bike and you average 5,000 rpm and you have done 3,000,000 revolutions of the engine. That is in one day. Ride an average of 20 hours a week and you have done 6,000,000 revolutions or 312,000,000 revolutions a year. Turning the bike over 3 revolutions once a year with the sparc plugs out when you have just drained the oil will not make a toss of difference, not a toss.

 

You’ve got a calculator haven’t you

 

Two calculators ??

 

No, no, that was totally off my head, real spur of the moment stuff.......

 

All your riding miles are with good oil pressure. It's the turning over and restarting the engine with zero positive oil pressure that's the issue for me.

 

Considering most engine bearing surface wear takes place during startup having no oil pressure for that first start you do when voiding the pump of all oil despite oil residue being present would likely create more accelerated wear...and a fair bit of toss.

One thing i always do on an engine i care about preserving is to prime the oil filter when changing as without your waiting for the pump to prime the filter and meanwhile there is no oil pressure.

 

Whilst having a lunch break changing a combine engine many moons ago, I saw a plume of chicken feathers from a hapless bird that had managed to struggle past a partially broken fan guard in the chicken farm. It didn't put me off my sandwiches. We did put oil in the engine before turning it over to start. It worked and the sandwiches were delicious. Buttons Green, Cockfield and a MR Don Slater (ex navy) the farmer.

 

+1 and easy to do on the classic twin engines as the filter attaches upside down. On my car it sits the other way up so filling it completely is impossible but you can get it around 2/3 full thanks to the drain back valve. Only ever fitted a non OME filter once which I'm pretty sure didn't have a DBV. On a cold start after standing overnight the oil pressure took and anxious 3-4 seconds longer to appear than it did with the OME filter. Might not sound long but when you're watching the gauge it's an age. Suffice to say I changed it for the "proper" filter sharpish.

 

Tricky-Dicky I'm with your advice all the way, it's great to hear a like minded soul with engine building skills that takes pride in your work, and more importantly its sound advice. I was having a discussion with a Triumph factory technician recently regarding engines and running in procedures, what I came away with was we are on the same page, so credit to you Tricky that's at least three on the same page and I doubt our engines will let go.

 

I love this quote and how it totally skews the real cause of an engine wear, it is meaningless. In isolation you could say it is true but It gives you the impression that your bearing change came about by how many times you started your bike rather than the mileage it did running normally. Most engine bearing surface wear takes place because of engine use, nothing more complex.

Yes your bearings will wear more at startup compared to normal running but this is for an absolute tiniest fraction of time that the engine overall lifetime. If starting an engine was such a massive cause of engine wear you would have an electric pump to "preload" oil pressure. I know some very large engines have this system and have worked on them for many years. They have this system because the oilway distances are very long and it takes some time to get oil around the whole system. Our tiny bike engines have no such trouble.

 

And being pedantic and using just one part of my comment and misquoting proves that it was totally wrong and meaningless i guess.