Engine Break-in - How did you do it?

**euphonius** · 02-27-2011, 04:14 PM

Alas, when running in a China bike we have to keep a lot more in mind than just what's happening to the piston, cylinder, valves and drive train as we introduce them to the stress of riding. We have to be thinking: Will the bloody thing fall apart? Were all the critical bolts properly torqued? Endlessly debated theories about whether running too lightly will cause unwanted carbon deposits on the cylinder walls mean little if you are afraid your engine is going to fly off its mounts!

I'm exaggerating, of course, but only slightly. What China bike rider does not have a story about parts simply falling off or breaking in place due to poor quality or poor build or both?

With my Jialing JH600, I took it easy for a couple hundred km, but the damned thing was so much fun, and the roads and expressways around Chongqing so devilishly inconsistent and challenging, I couldn't help but hammer her but good. Never quite redlined her, but once I was confident the engine was not coming off, I started pushing pretty hard. I'm now approaching 10k, and she's running sweet and strong. Really love this China bike...

**JTC** · 02-27-2011, 04:48 PM

Great News - Sounds like you broke it in just right. I spent many hour staring at my Qlink XF200 and I am anxious to break it in, but have to wait a couple more weeks proabably for all this snow tto disaapear. Hopefully Soon.!!!! Can't wait to ride! All the Mods have been completed. Seat Mod cuase I'm short, Complete Exhuast Replaced with Pro Circuit T4 System Jets replaced in the Carb, Front Sprocket swapped with a 16T - Color matched hand guards, front headlight swapped out for a better looking more functional one. NEW Battery - Added quick connect for battery tender. After all this I think she and I are ready to ride.

**jape** · 02-27-2011, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by euphonius

With my Jialing JH600, I took it easy for a couple hundred km, but the damned thing was so much fun, and the roads and expressways around Chongqing so devilishly inconsistent and challenging, I couldn't help but hammer her but good. Never quite redlined her, but once I was confident the engine was not coming off, I started pushing pretty hard. I'm now approaching 10k, and she's running sweet and strong. Really love this China bike...

路遥知马力日久见人心

**euphonius** · 02-28-2011, 04:57 AM

Originally Posted by jape

路遥知马力日久见人心

Going all poetic today, are we?

It's an elegant aphorism, Jape, and adds depth to our discussion of running in a new engine! (Translation: Just as distance tests a horse's strength, so time reveals a man's heart.)

Your Chinese is improving rapidly!

cheers

**ZMC888** · 02-28-2011, 05:11 AM

One thing worth remembering is that Chinese factory engine oil is usually not very good. Particularly if you have an air cooled engine or the weather is cold when you first run-in the bike, the oil may not be the right cold or heat grade for your engine. 20-50 could cause start-up damage in very cold weather and 10-30 could cause hot weather engine heat stress problems. As well as metal shards in the engine potentially left over from manufacture. I'd always change the oil in the first 50km, and give the bike a gentle introduction run up until the first change. Then change to the most appropriate best quality mineral oil possible and run the bike in a variety of rev ranges, just not continually at any rev range including high revs and steep mountain roads. A cool trick I learned was to ride downhill rev the bike up and let the bike idle down to a medium range. The theory is that this causes engine compression that sucks the head and gasket down onto the rest of the engine body. Of course bolts should be checked before the bike is even ridden for the first time!

**jape** · 02-28-2011, 05:34 AM

Originally Posted by euphonius

Going all poetic today, are we? It's an elegant aphorism, Jape, and adds depth to our discussion of running in a new engine! (Translation: Just as distance tests a horse's strength, so time reveals a man's heart.)Your Chinese is improving rapidly!cheers

I don't understand a word really! I have been trying to understand the Chinese, preparing fro my trip. I do not travel just as a sightseer usually. When I find a phrase or any material on China, as I do other things, I note it down and try and use it in my own ideas. This one turned up in a book by chance and I used google translate to be sure it was correct in context. It felt very apt to your, and my, emotion of getting to love our 'horses' and finding our own hearts as we did, in the riding and the familiarity.

It offends me when some here and elsewhere portray the Chinese as stupid, ignorant, ill-equipped for commerce and manufacture etc. I don't see it that way at all. Convoluted, opaque to our own mindset perhaps, difficult even for old china hands such as yourself with knowledge of the subtleties. But certainly not stupid!

Our own western races are usually the crude, self-centered, blinkered and arrogant ones.
And all races can be murderous, devious and misguided.
The red gang and the green gang are one and the same.
Best not to be colour-blinded I think.

The very phrase, 'breaking in', is as with horses, too blunt - and does not explain the process. it is 'easing in', even if done firmly. As with 'horse-whispering', the alternative, you have to understand the beast. If you do, you love it.

That phrase or proverb is subtle indeed and can be read more than one way.

**td_ref** · 02-28-2011, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by euphonius

Alas, when running in a China bike we have to keep a lot more in mind than just what's happening to the piston, cylinder, valves and drive train as we introduce them to the stress of riding. We have to be thinking: Will the bloody thing fall apart? ......

I'm exaggerating, of course, but only slightly. ......

To be fair, China made engine nowadays is not that bad. My workhorse Suzuki GS was assembled by Jinan Qingqi (Made in 1994, at that time China had not made decent gs engine copy), the engine was made in Japan. Parts I upgrade was China made, piston, cylinder, rings. I was hard on break-in. Those components are fine up to now. Even my cheap 110cc pit bike, the engine itself only cost 600-700 RMB(taobao price) and I hard on break-in it. It has been good for 2 years(except start motor fail), and I have been constantly push it to red-line, but of course regular oil change.
My point is they are not that bad, in fact, those Japanese replica like GS EN, they are very reliable. So don't worry too much, hard break-in those engines.

**euphonius** · 02-28-2011, 06:47 AM

Jape, if that's the only phrase you learn in Chinese, you can utter it wherever you go and the Chinese will bow before you and believe you are the second coming of...

of...

of...

David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine!