How did most of you break-in your brand new Z? There are few ways to do this. One, driving under 3-4k rpms and never above 50% throttle. The other, driving it like you will always drive it, hard if you will. My question to you all is, how did you break your car in, and if you were to do it again, would you do it differently. I was told that back in the day, you had to break your car in, but now it is unnesassary(s/p?) So, let's have it, how did you break in your car and how is it all holding up?

 

i never went above 4000 rpm for the first 1200 miles. i don't think i would do anything differently. i'm not sure if its neccessary or not, but it said so in the owners manual so i followed their instructions.

 

Drove it normally... without flogging it.

Once every 100 miles take it to redline through a couple gears. This will help the rings to set properly.

If you don't do this... in years to come you may find the engine to be burning oil more rapidly.

 

Evil350z,
Why would it matter if you did it through various gears? As the engine sees it, isn't it the same whether 1st or 6th? I guess Neutral is different because of no load.
Thanks!

 

1st is also basicly no load on it, higher gears are more controlled than low gears.

I personally held it under 4000 for 6-800miles(I forget) then went to 5000, for a while, then 6000 by 1000 miles. finally running it to 1200 and driving it as I wanted.

treated it as a curve rather than steps.

wouldnt do anything different, if it didnt help the car, it atleast broke me into feeling that kind of power. Id hate to just sit down in the Z, floor it and go holy crap right before I hit the tree.

 

Cool, I didn't know that. Thanks.
So far I haven't pushed it very hard. I think I'll wait for a wide open area sans vegitation

 

basically i am doing like the manual stated...

no quick accelerations, especially from a standstill, no hard braking, no going over 4,000 rpms.
i have personally never heard of the go up to 6,000 rpms thing. i have had the car for 3 1/2 weeks and i have been trying to get over 1,200 miles so that i can see what she can do, but so far i only have about 440 miles. i was on vacation so i was able to drive it alot. now the miles will slow down. it wont be for another 2 months or so before i reach 1,200. the anticipation is killing me... however, i think i will be happy i did it this way in the long run. not sure if it is really necessary, but better to be safe than sorry....

 

i drove it normally.... didnt redline it all the time.. but opened it up every once in a while...

 

You have to get it up in RPMs once in awhile during break in or the rings won't seat. You don't push the piston through the full excursion and will end up with a slower engine. Start out under 4000 for a few hundred miles and slowly push it. You'll be at redline before you know it!!!!

 

I'm not disagreeing with you, but if you should take it to redline a few times during the breakin, wouldn't Nissan mention and encourage this?

 

When I test drove my Z (at the time really did not expect to buy it right away) it had 7 miles on it and I believe I hit about 5500 on it around 10 miles.. But already by 4500 miles I had broke into the 13's and trapped 101 at the strip. I did however for 1200 miles drive 98% under 4k with an occacional 5500-6k run. It seems to get faster with every 1k miles on it and I am getting about 32MPG at 65mph in 6th