sbutton

air induction, maaaaaaaan! my two week old baby reached 600 miles today and the temperature was the coldest so far, so my first push to 7k rpm was more like a shove.....finally to be honest it was feeling a bit limp up to 6... will mid range power get better with more miles on the clock?

dxben

i highly suggest RI-RS4's methods, which are within the limits of the manual but are specific nonetheless. I found excellent power through his technique, even before 7k and under 1k miles.

McGyver

For the most part, I agreed with it, but forgot to print it. Thanks.

McGyver

The owner's manual contains some hard RPM and throttle position limits up to 1200 miles. (6000 rpm up to 600 miles, 7000 rpm up to 1200 miles, no full throttle until 1200 miles, and then only occasionally until 1500 miles) Within those limits the engine can still be wrung out pretty hard. (Torque peaks at 5500 rpm.) This type of engine, with Alusil cylinder walls, needs to have some serious power applied to the rings in hard acceleration and deceleration, in order to properly seat the rings in their grooves and against the cylinder walls. Deceleration using compression breaking is extremely helpful during the process, since it reverses the loads on the pistons and rings and allows all surfaces to wear-in well.

WOT is also very bad for this engine when it's not broken in. Mixture enrichment during WOT will blow-by into the oil and contaminate it. I generally recommend 3/4 throttle maximum until 1200 miles.

Remember, also, that this engine, by design, is not fully broken in until between 7K and 10K miles, due to the hard silicon cylinder walls.

I will point out that maximum piston ring forces occur at maximum engine torque, which is about 5500 rpm. This falls within even the early < 600 mile break-in RPM limit. You just aren't supposed to go to full throttle yet ... but, nothing in the manual says you can't get damn close.

The key is to run the engine up hard, to maximize the ring/cylinder wall forces under acceleration, and then to allow the engine to use full compression breaking, to reverse those forces. This allows the rings to fully wear into the piston grooves and to lap themselves against the cylinder walls. This is much easier to do when the engine is young. As it gets older, deposits in the ring grooves can prevent full seating.

I broke in my engine fast and hard, within the RPM and throttle guidelines in the manual, with 2nd and 3rd gear hard acceleration and engine compression deceleration, after complete engine warmup, followed by cooldown, constant cruising in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th gears, and then repeating the hard acceleration. I did this every time I took the car out during the break in period, to seat the rings and wear-in the cylinder walls, which are hard silicon. At 1800 miles I changed the oil and filter.

Here are my oil consumption results:

1.5 Qts/1800 miles -- factory oil

Zero Qts/(1800 to 5000 miles) -- Elf Excellium LDX 5W-40

Zero Qts/(5000 to 6400 miles) -- Motul E-tech 8100 0W-40

Using an aggressive break-in regime will reduce oil consumption over the life of the engine, and increase maximum power output. I have had no oil consumption since changing out the factory oil at 1800 miles.

BTW, unless you over rev the engine, the most violent time your engine ever sees is those first few seconds after cold start. This is when wear is at it's highest. This is also why you want to start her, and drive her away, so that the engine and oil can warm as quickly as possible. Racing engines have dry sump heaters and pumps to bring the oil up to operating temperature and pressure prior to starting.
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2007 RS4
Daytona Grey/Silver
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sbutton

am using this technique and am hoping this car get faster, fast! am definately hoping for sharper mid range grunt, 6 to 8k is great, but 4 to 6k needs a kick. Thanks for the advice, hope 600 miles isnt too late for proper piston ring seating.

Stefaan

What do they mean by engine compression deceleration? Shift it down, so that you rev it up and decelerate on the engine? Or just decelerate on the engine without shifting down?

Thanks for the info.

RI A6

Wind her up in 1st gear to the rpm limit, and then release the throttle and let the engine brake you. do the same in 2nd and 3rd. I usually do this by slowing down and allowing traffic to get way ahead of me. Then I accelerate and decelerate like the car is attached to a rubberband.

absoluteis

stupid question, but how far do you let it decel down? Can I just let it decel down to 3k? or less?

dxben

ri rs4 suggested to me to let it go down s much as possible, like 2-3k rpm, but remember that traffic safety is key and 4k will probably do the trick which is how I did it most of the time.

absoluteis

Thanks Will find it hard to sleep tonight AFTER driving it