So I was cruising the interwebs for insight into breaking in new engines, and I found two schools of thought. (1) Baby it, as per MOM. (2) Ride the hell out of it, as per this guy and this guy.

Did a search of the forum, and I didn't see any threads on this issue, so I thought I'd put the question to you all. Any thoughts on this little debate? What approach did you take to the break-in period? And what results have you had? It'd be interesting to see whether people got better performance by babying the bike or riding the heck out of it during the break-in period.

Ride safe, everyone.

 

Breakin' in a new motor Arch? Do tell...

 

I wish! Nah, I'm just interested in the theory behind the break-in at this point. Although I am looking ahead to the far off day when I move up to a 1200, and then I'll want to do things right.

 

Have you spied the new 1200 SE kit...all black to match the original Iron cylinders. HD 30003-10. If I ever do it, this is probably the one I'll get, not that it really needs it. The snow here melted away so I got to take the sporty out finally, I don't find it lacking yet. Very interesting reads on the the break-in though. I've always just followed the manual pretty much.
Although, it really never happens on the first ride home...

 

I use my own method. I have broken in my share of motors over the years. I pretty much keep it off the freeway and go up and down through the gears. A good winding road is a great place. Don't over rev it, Don't lug it, Don't over heat it. Pull over and take a break and let it cool down every now and then. Change the oil and filter at 50, 250, 1,000 miles. You will see a lot of junk in the oil if you look for it. At about 4-5 hundred miles I ride it like normal.

 

I was told by HD to drive it on the highway 55 then to 60 for a while then up to 65 and then back down to 55, you get the picture. He also said to change the oil at 1000 miles, but as blkbagger said I am going to do it at 250, 500, then 1000. After that just drive it and enjoy. I have never found driving the hell out of anything to get you except blown engine's or tranny's or burned out clutch's. This is the technique I have employed over the year's with my car's and truck's and it has worked pretty well for me. None of them leak or burn oil and they still have excellent compression. IMHO. Good luck.

 

Drove both bike like the manual said and changed the oil at 1000 like the MFG said...no issues yet...Figured it's been done like that for a long time and no issues yet.

 

I like mototunes way and his logic. I use the 30-60-mph in 3rd gear myself, 10 x in a row, letting the motor do it's own braking. When it gets down to 30 punch it back up to 60 and then let it coast down to 30. I dropped my oil at 100 miles, lots of brake in crap in there. Mototunes says to drop your oil at 20 miles, but that's a little extreme. I went with 100, 650, and will do soon again, or whenever the weather decides to change.

 

For my first engine I followed HD break in procedures, low speeds, vary the speeds, don't lug, or over rev etc for the first 500 miles. That worked very well. When I took that engine apart to do the 1250 conversion, it looked good as new on the inside.

For the new 1250 engine, I took the mototunes approach. Time will tell on that. I don't have enough miles on the 1250 engine to say that was a success or failure.

 

I've rode every sccot I've ever owned like normal, well, normal for me, from day one. Never had any problems.