Engines in! couple of questions about breakin

[Zboy]

First my engine is in, YAY!!! Now what is the best way to prime this style of engine where the oil pump cannot be primed? I packed the pump with petroleum jelly as per the instructions, now I'm thinking the best way to prime with oil is to pull the ecm fuse and crank the engine. Anyone have a better way?

[SappySE107]

You want it to fire so that it will pump oil as soon as possible. I have never rebuilt a DOHC but I don't believe you have to worry about the 2000 RPM deal for 10-20 minutes because the lifters have no wear pattern to break in. So I would break it in like any other motor short of that. There are different theories on break in and I have no experience with break in to tell you any comparisons. 1 way is to drive it real easy and low RPM for the first x miles. Normally 50-100. Then progessively go higher RPM till 1000 and then after that you can run it up to whatever you want. Change the oil often, and filter. Right after you first start it up and get it running, you can change the oil. Some people will drive it 25 miles first and then change the oil. I would do break in, change oil. 25 miles, change oil. 50 miles, change oil. 100 change oil, then 250, 500, 1000, 3000. That may be a waste of oil but I recycle it and I would rather not keep oil full of metal in the engine for long. You will get quite a bit while its breaking in the rings.

Another method of break in is to get it running, warmed up, whatever, then change or don't change the oil. Then, get out on the road and run it up to 80% or so to redline, and then let the engine do the braking. This will cause an major pressure difference from crankcase to combustion space. There is a motorcycle based site that talks about break in and a lot more. I know the corvette owners in 01 were talking about this sort of engine brake in where they do that 2 times every tank of gas for the first thousand miles (i think, i know they do it for a couple gas tanks at least).

[sspeedstreet]

Pull the spark plugs before you crank it. It will spin up much faster without the compression. Make sure the fuel pump is disabled.

[Juglenaut]

Or you can just unplug the injector connectors and pull the pump relay. You want compression keep the plugs in trust me. I had a weather pack interconnect to unplug all injectors from power.