SteedaGus

Hi guys. I've seen some discussions here in the past on what difference, if any, there is between a brand new 2011 5.0 engine and the same engine later on after its been broken in.

Some are skeptical they make more power after breaking in, others know they are but just arent sure how much is realistic to expect.

Well today I have some numbers to add fuel to the fire.

This dyno below is from one of our two 2011 5.0's. Both our cars are manual transmission cars. First pull is brand new with our cold air/tune. Second dyno is the same car, same modifications several thousand miles later.



This car except for the cold air and tuning has no other engine related modifications, not even exhaust.

As you can see peak is up about 11.5 horsepower with some points in the band coming in with 20hp more. Torque is up substancially as well since being broken in.

Just for fun we decided to tweak the tune further on this car since we had it on the dyno already. Here is the result of that.



410 to the wheels with just a cold air and tune is not too shabby.

You may have seen one of ours previous posts where one of our test cars went a best of 11.96 at over 115. That was with a brand new engine with no break in.

With some more tune tweaking we think we can go deeper into the 11's at 116 to 117mph with just a cold air and tune through stock exhaust on drag radials. In the coming weeks we hope to have the opportunity to get this done as well.

Falcon Fixer

I have a Steeda intake and tune.
Is this "Tweaked" tune available?

Derf00

It's not uncommon for most cars these days to pick up power (and the speed that goes with it) after a few thousand miles of driving. All the parts get worn in and the computer is more efficient with the fuel mapping.

Most new car reviews you read from MotorTrend, C&A, FF&MM, etc will point out whether the car is fresh off the lot or worn in, and comment on the differences in some cases.

JIM5.0

I noticed that just about every single dyno graph of a car with mods do not show how much it is making below 2000 RPM.
For example, in the very first graph above, the stock unbroken-in engine begins its dyno run at ~1600 RPM.
The modded unbroken in engine graph begins above 2000 RPM.

Why is that?
Is it too hard to get the car to 1:1 gear below 2000 RPM on a modded engine and tune?

VistaBlue

Modding the car does nothing to change the ability of the car to reach a 1:1 gear. As far as the dyno sheet goes, that's just when they happened to start recording.

JIM5.0

Is it hard to consistently start recording below the 2000 RPM mark?
There are certain cases in which you want to know that a mod is actually giving you performance increases not just 3000RPM to redline, but for the entire RPM bandwidth. Of course, trying to dyno anything below 1000 RPM is impossible in most cases, and even dynoying below 1500 in unreasonable, but knowing that you are getting significant gains from below 2K RPM is a bonus. This indicates that you have improved take-off ability at the line, good for the drag strip, and for spirited driving on the street (I do not endorse street racing, so spirited driving is about it in my books).