Quote:
Originally Posted by WarmAndSCSI
Yes, thank you, some common sense finally! 
It's not so much the rings, it's gaining a plateau finish on the cylinder wall oil retention "valleys." Every block that rolls off Nissan's assembly line is pre-honed and plateau honed to an extent, but there is still some potential to leave the oil cross hatches too shallow or glazed over due to improper break in.
I'm going to leave it at my experience of 4 years of building several V6 engines for boosted applications... The problem is not with people refusing to break in their engine too hard, it's with people who are too easy or otherwise follow a bad engine break-in procedure. For the first 50 miles once your engine reaches operating temperature, it is critical to A) NOT idle the engine at all if possible, shut it off if you get stuck at a light B) load the cylinder walls so force is exerted from the rings (have some fun, but don't beat on the engine or let your oil and/or coolant get too hot) and C) engine brake every chance you get to accomplish B) even when you are decelerating and D) do NOT cruise at a constant speed at all if possible - take the hilliest route you can if applicable so you can vary the load on your engine. Continue this procedure for the first several hundred miles, but the no idling rule becomes less important after the first 50-100 miles or X number of revolutions.
That's all I have to say; I can promise you that you will not have an oil consumption problem again if you do the above. |
At first I was gonna go "oh here we go again, somebody claiming you can beat the snot out of it from day one". But your post is spot-on. It's all about varying the RPM as much as possible and not driving at constant speeds. And the owner's manual says exactly that! (Of course almost nobody reads the manual anyway
)
Funny...I broke the engine in properly and only once or twice brought it over 6000 during break-in and whaddya know, it doesn't burn any oil.