How to Break In Your New Motorcycle

hello my name is Ryan and I review motorcycles last year I rode 10 bikes through the break-in period this is how I do it first you buy a new motorcycle in November the riding season is almost done Christmas hasn't arrived and EICMA just made everything on the floor old news and come January first these motorcycles will turn into pumpkins so Cinderella will drop her pants to make a deal Charming next idle the bike for 5 minutes this moves oil to all the oily parts of the engine it also lets me keep an eye out for smoke signals and unusual sounds manufacturing defects are rare but if there is one I prefer to catch it from the safety and convenience of a dealership parking lot once I'm convinced that I bought an engine rather than a grenade it's time for the riveting first ride [Music] [Applause] [Music] low speed figure eights roughing up much of the tire profile while also giving me a feel for the bike's weight balance and dynamics see new motorcycles come with new tires and mostly pre-release agents are a thing of the past I still want to scrub some roughness into the tread before cutting loose more than 50% of crashes involve riders who are new to their machines so it always get acquainted with fresh bikes in a low risk scenario now once that's done I'm gonna go for a real ride to break in the engine with real combustion pressure and whether I do this by riding hard or riding gently is an extremely contentious topic it's up there with old 49 favorites like which religion is best got guns littering 101 how to make a longer riding season and the evils of capitalism contentious as it is hard breakers and soft breakers agree on one thing the break-in period is about seating piston rings to the cylinder wall if this is my piston separating the combustion chamber from the crank case then we have oil down here and an air fuel mixture up here the piston ring separates the two but if it doesn't seal properly we end up losing oil into the combustion chamber and losing combustion gas into the crankcase results we burn more oil and lose compression meaning we burn more gas and lose horsepower okay so how do I seal my piston rings to the cylinder wall from the factory both have micro rough surfaces and when you rub to rough things together they get smoother and the surfaces begin to match to form a seal so on the simplest level you brake in an engine by rubbing it however if you exert too much pressure on the surfaces mountains on one will carve deep valleys in the other and when the pressure is released you'll get empty gaps rather than a seal that's why I never lug who the engine during a break-in period if the piston is moving too slow it could still be compressing when combustion happens and that creates a spike in pressure carving deep valleys in the cylinder walls so I avoid low red okay so gentle break-in is crap I should just grab a handful and go like hell wrong you can also spin an engine too fast building up enough friction heat to soften the piston rings if that happens the surfaces will warp as they cool and they won't match okay so hard break-in is crap - I should probably just cruise at middle RPMs for the first thousand kilometers wrong again if I stay at 4000 rpm for the entire break-in period I'm only teaching my engine one type of heat and pressure when I eventually go beyond that it'll feel the not so the ideal break in ground is neither mellow Cruise nor frantic racetrack nor steady highway it's a twisty road with occasional spots to pull off that lets me very V rpms from just above the lug line on up to the redline I do that for about 10 minutes and then I've had a nice place to take a break and let the engine cool down another cool November day helps to keep temperatures reasonable and I wouldn't trust the dash on this one either just because the overall temp is normal that doesn't mean there isn't a hot spot between the ring and the cylinder once my cool down break is over I start varying the throttle all over again brisk acceleration and deceleration is the quickest way to heat up tires remember that our new treads need heat to get sticky meanwhile up shifting and down shifting puts positive and negative pressure between piston and piston ring another crucial factor for making a good seal so that's how I break in a new bike by using a wide variety of rpms and taking frequent breaks never lug an engine by riding too soft never overheat the cylinders by adding too hard wait a minute why does the owner's manual say to ride gently but probably because if they told everyone to hit the redline that essentially be advising new riders on new bikes to hit Mach 10 on city streets lawsuit lawsuit or lawsuit let that be a reminder to us of the involved every experienced rider is inexperienced on a new bike the most important rule for braking in an unfamiliar motorcycle is just stick to familiar speeds familiar lean angles and familiar roads I always do and a couple thousand kilometers down the road when I've changed the dinosaur oil a handful of times to remove metal shavings when they carefully varied rpms become a little more wild when my frequent breaks become a little more infrequent and when my new motorcycle is a little less new to me then the break-in period is over and I'll ride the thing with absolutely no limits just to show it what kind of life were in for and just so anything that's gonna break will break under warranty you

Channel: FortNine

Views: 1,806,449

Keywords: Break-In Period, Motorcycle, New, How to, Engine, Piston, First, FortNine, Vancouver, Canada, Hard Break In, Soft Break In, MotoVlog, MotoVlogger, Canadian, BMW, F800GS, F800GSA, ADV, Adventure Bike, Off-Road, how to, running in, new motorcycle, first service, oil change, DIY, maintenance, tips, tricks

Id: u74jYkItdD8

Length: 6min 16sec (376 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2017