I am anxiously waiting to pick up my new 09 xl883l and am reading a lot about engine break-in. My profession is in computers, I have limited experience working on cars and motorcycles, I know how to change oil, plugs etc. But the engine break-in is a bit out of my league in the technical department. I understand it is to get the piston rings sealed and that it is a vital part of the engines life. I stumbled across a couple links which contradict manufacturer suggestions: http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm and http://www.ntnoa.org/enginebreakin.htm Can someone more knowledgeable about engines give me an opinion on hard break-ins compared to manufacturer procedure?

 

I'm interested to see what people say about this. I also am getting a new 883.

 

Here's what I was told by the salesman when I got ready to ride off on my 883.

1st 50 miles...Vary your speed. If your on the highway don’t set your speed at 65mph and stay there all day. Don’t need to worry too much about this in town as you would be starting and stopping a lot. No fast or hard starts off the line, no hard braking (if you can avoid it), don’t rev up the engine real hard, and don‘t (as he put it) “make the gears work too hard for the speed your going“. In other words, don‘t wait until your doing 30mph before shifting into 2nd…etc. 1st 50 you kinda want to baby it.

50-100 miles…don’t need to vary speed as much, but still a good idea if your on the interstate riding for a long stretch. Still want to be easy on the starts, and easy on the gears. But you can start to open it up alittle.

After 100 miles…ride it like you stole it.

After the first 1000 miles whether you take it to the dealer or not, change the oil.

Not sure if all this is necessary but I followed those rules and my bike runs great. At about 1200/1400 miles your bike will start to really come to life.

 

As this thread takes off I think you will get a variety of opinions that rivals the availability of the various spark plug designs. The biggest reason for break in is seating the compression rings along with allowing internal parts to develop wear clearances and both are important but this doesn't mean the engine or bike for that matter needs to be babied. Lugging in any gear is not recommended at all. I generally take the bike out where I can be all alone on it's first run. I will go through some solid acceleration and decceleration runs, which will seat the rings. This can be done on a dyno as well. I will then ride the bike as I normally would never going over roughly 80% of the redline for the first few hundred miles like 100 to 300. At that time I will change the oil to what I normally use. Beyond this, I enjoy the hell out of it and have yet to have any issues.

 

Follow what's in the owner's manual and you won't go wrong.

 

Now that's funny. I take it you've never tried following the shift pattern set up in the owners manual. Now that's what I call lugging.

 

I bought my bike 117 miles from my home. The route back was 98% interstate. They told me "just ride it" ...and vary my speed when I could. For the most part, I rode 65+ on the way back. There were a couple places where I went through towns and shifted down to lower gears. Then I did some in-town riding for a couple days to hit the lower gears more. I've racked up MANY miles since then and I have never had a leak or any problem with the bike.

 

I shift gears at 2500-3000 RPM the sweet spot being 2800 shifts smooth as glass.. Without a Tach you get the right feel with time by your speed and how smooth it shifts..
Varying speeds helps as well try to keep from excessive speed starts and hard braking espicially the first 100 miles .. Running it up to 80 is fine as long as don't leave it there vary between 60-80 and let the Pistons do their work sealing .. What I did was change my oil at 500 Miles to Synthetic but thats a personal choice .. Then after the 500 mile Service, rode it like a banshee not abusive but ran it to the limits and let er rip..