mustanglover66

We always put the rottela 15/40 oil in our flat tappet engines after sevaral distoried the cam on the first start up on the dyno. prime the engine with the priming tool and an drill. pull the valve covers so you can see the oil come up to eash and every rocker. Every engine we do gets run at 2000 rpm for 1 hour with out shuting it down. Then let it cool off. Then you can do what every you want after that. They make tools that show the rpm with out using a tack check at advance or autozone.

JapanGT

I use the motoman technique..........for any and all engines. With non synthetic oil.
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

As soon as the engine is broken in I change to synthetic oil.

I've seen too many engines babied during break in that are underpowered
or have sealing issues with the rings. Don't flog it but don't baby it.

Jav

Scott H.

.....

JohnnyK

NO!.. Take out distributor.. Insert priming tool in drill.. Turn in reverse until oil is coming out of rockers and there is oil pressure.

Reverb

Thats the technique I use. My brother builds racing 2-strokes and he uses that too.

67coupe

I read an article on one of the old school hot rod sites about synthetic oil. It was stating that with a flat tappet cam you need zinc in the oil and only a few synthetics have it. Most are special blends for diesel engines.

TexasAxMan

Great write up by Scott H.

fordification

About the only thing that wasn't mentioned was running cold water through for that 1500rpm for 15 minutes startup. it keeps the rings at a good pressure.

tyler72

That was a good write up! A buddy of mine and his step dad built an Australian Block 351 Cleveland (all 5 mains are 4 bolt), and the bock was honed to .005 over, (yep, half of ten over) and they put in .010 over rings. They put in rotella 15-40 and fired it up! His step dad revved it to 5500 RPM and held it there for 10 minutes!!!! Then he backed it off to 2500 and held it there for 20 minutes. He said it was quite comical, and loud since it had open headers at the time. Anyway, the engine is still going great, and runs very very strong!