Re: break in...
ALot of people follow the theory that the "break-in" period is put into the manual by the manufacture to protect them from liability in case an inexperienced operator is at the helm. They tell you to take it easy on the engine because it needs to be broken in when in all reality, they don't want you running across the lake at 50mph not knowing what your doing. Personally, I fall in between these two thoughts. On my motorcyles, it gets alot of heat cycles and engine braking for approximately 100-200 miles to seat the rings, but never any redlining. Change the oil at 20 miles and 200 miles and the engines are good to go and you can run them like you want to. I take the same satand with my boat motor. Run it reasonable w/o any WOT for the first 1-4 hours. Change the oil out and then run it like you want. The only problem that I believe can occur is and I'm not sure what newer engines have this, but if you boat motor has any type of diagnostic test device on it, it may have a memory of what is going on with the engine and if something fails in the motor, and they see that on the 5th hour of the motor, you ran WOT, it may give the manufacture a leg to stand on if they want to deny your warranty claim because you didn't follow break-in procedure. Now, if the engine doesn't record you activity and you say have a major failure, there is no way for them to determine that you ran 4300 rpms as opposed to not exceeding 4000 rpm for the first 20 hours or whatever. If something fails, it's not because of not following a "break-in" procedure. It's because the manufacture didn't produce something correctly or put it together correctly. I'm sure many people will not agree with me and that's fine. that's why I take the middle ground on the break-in procedure. The only thing I do know is that I've seen quite a few bike motors that were broken in gingerly and their motors were not up to par. The thing is, ALL motors, no matter what application they ar used in, were stress tested to redline or WOT at the factory. Just take it easy on her for a few hours and then run her like a reasonable person would. Just change that oil early, there is alot of metel shavings coming off that new motor, get rid of them early. Finally, I'm not advocating not folowing your break-in procedure. I'm just stating my opinion of WHY there is a break-in period.
