I am ready to order an F350 V10. I am seriously considering ordering it from Jeff. My only concern is that I would have a 450 mile ride back to Taxachusetts and the effect it would have on breaking in the truck and especially the V10. Any comments/opinions on this and anything else to do during the break-in period will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

I know what you mean about break-in. When I got mine I had about 200 miles on it when I needed to go out of town, about 600 mile round trip. I didn't use the CC and did vary my speed on the highway 60-75, went fast then slow - drove everyone crazy with me.... I can tell of no ill effects

 

Break in time is best when the rpm never stays the same for long so freeway miles are not the best. Unless you want to go 35-75, 75-35, 35-75 which depending on traffic, you may get to do anyway. But would that stop me from buying a new truck and driving it home on the freeway, just vary the rpm as much as you can, pull over every 30 minutes off the highway. The stopping and starting will give you a good rpm range to break in your new motor. Congrats ! New trucks are so awesome, the smell, the feel, the shininess, it'll be so sweet.

 

Vito, I agree with the above posts and you should be able to vary your RPM by staying in the slow lane , pulling your auto into 3rd gear once in a while , back in OD , gas it to
make her kick down etc. It will be a little bit of a PITA and you will burn extra gas.
I think motors come more run in now than years ago and I think it would take quite a long time at the same RPM to do a poor break-in . With the traffic we have now days that would be almost impossible. I think you will be very happy with a new V10. I never get tired telling people how much I love mine and it is a great mystery to me that so few SDs are purchased with V10s. In the past you had to get the PSD to have the highest tow ratings, not anymore, the V10 is rated the same with 4.30 gears.

 

In my old, bold, motorcycle, hot rod days we'd break in a new or newly rebuilt motor like we wanted them to run, hard and fast. Of course you could jerk the 351 Cleveland out of your car and rebuild it in a couple days for a couple hundred dollars. And motorcycles, especially 2 stroke motocross bikes got rebuilt top-ends every couple months, so I doubt the hard and fast break-in would be the best approach for a new, $7,000 motor.

 

When I got my V10, I just switched lanes alot. Usually, the right lane is slower than the middle, and the left is the fastest. Just keep passing people, and then getting in the right lane, slow down, let them pass and do it again. If you're lucky no one will throw any bullets your way

And, stop at rest stops a lot. Also, if you play with the gas a bit, you can get the torque-convertor to unlock which will give you a 500RPM range to play with even if you are keeping steady speed.

Or, take the little two-lane highways for the scenic route once in a while and slow down every time you see a cow ... There's a place in Upstate NY (lower half) where there are bison - yes bison (buffaloes?) ... I'll tell you, the first time I saw them I almost got rear-ended by a local-yokel ...

art k.

 

Thanks guys for the help. This is a great forum, plenty of good information. I couldn't make up my mind between the V10 and PSD for a long time. But thanks to the info here, I decided on the V10 which also makes my wife really happy since she doesn't like the PSD noise. It's going to be a daily driver for me and I plan on several long RV trips per year pulling a 5000 lb trailer. Eventually going to take it Alaska for a real long trip. Is there anything else to watch for during the breakin?

 

vito go to this link and read the 7th and 11th posts.....ah heck just read the whole danged thread lots of ideas in there

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...hlight=bedding

I have it on good authority that a few here have tried this method and did not post any feed back that the author is an idiot ....yet

 

I've always subscribed to the varying RPM's INCLUDING redline for short bursts. Never had an oil useage problem or early engine failure.

Here's an interesting article that has some valid points.

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

 

Ahem,,,, this is precisely the method us old guys always used. We had the mantra; "if you want it to run hard, break it in hard". This guy agrees, but, does an engine broke in like last as long as one broken in easy ? I wonder if he's done any long term testing. We broke our race engines in like this. But we knew we would be doing frequent rebuilds as part of the racing way of life. $40,000 for a new truck is different than a couple hundred bucks in the 60's and 70's for a J.C. Whitney rebuild kit. Good post though, interesting article, thanks, Ken

 

From the article;



Q: Will this break - in method cause my engine to wear out faster ???

A: No, in fact, a poor ring seal will allow an increase in the by products of combustion to contaminate the oil.
Acid contamination and oil consumption are the 2 reliability problems which are the result of an
"owner's manual" or "magazine tech article" style easy break-in.

By following the instructions on this page, you'll find that your oil is cleaner and the engine will rev quicker.
Plus, you'll have much better torque and power across the power range from the vastly improved ring seal.

Reliability and Power are 100% connected !!

 

Been owning and riding/racing motorcycles since 1967. Never a day since then that I did not own, ride, and race a 2 or 4 stroke air or water cooled bike.

Your V10 iron block and aluminum cylinder heads are a totally different animal.

There is no where near the quality control on the 10 pistons and ring sets as there is in a 2, 3, or 4 cylinder motorcycle engine.

MotoMan makes some excellent points and I have "dyno run in" on dozens of new or rebuilt motors for racing using a very similar method.

In all my well built Asian and European motors this method (Motoman's) works.

But with a Harley or S&S motor, 50% of the time I cooked a set of rings.

We have learned that the expansion rates of the rods, block, cylinders, and cylinder head bolts all need to have many many heat cold soak cycles to stretch and shrink. And the very high piston speeds (ring scuff) can weaken (super heat and break the temper) some alloys of rings and have no ill effects on others.

Any guess as to the quality , size conformity, factory set end gap, and alloy of the Ford V 10 ring sets? Does Ford really use the lighter cut and tighter cross hatch pattern he is describing?

I don't know, I can't find the data either.

My recommendation is unchanged after reading the entire Motoman process.

Just my .02 you are free to see if nailing it off the dealers lot will or won't result in a oil burner. None of my V10s has ever consumed any oil between 3000-5000 mile filter and oil changes.

 

I'm not near as extreme as motoman. But EVERY engine I've owned, both factory and personally rebuilt, will see redline for short bursts during break-in. My V10, or any engine I've owned as far as I can remember has never used oil between the 3-5K oil changes...........just changed the V10's oil on a 5k interval last week, I feel guilty as hell!!!

One very important comment in that article and one that seperates the motorheads from the rest of the world is proper warm-up. I will literally cringe when anyone revs a cold motor!!!

 

Ken , after re reading my post I guess it does sound like I was suggesting a hard break in, but I what I meant was just not keeping a constant RPM too long. My truck with the T/S trans has no way to take it out of OD and drop it into high so you do this manually by feeding the throttle to make it kick down.
In 3rd gear which I can select , I am only doing 3300 RPM at 50 MPH so when traffic is light you could slow down a bit and run in 3rd once in a while. I also agree with the posts warning against revving cold engines and that is a real benefit of EFI motors. You crank and start at low RPM. We all remember the quirks of carburetor motors that needed the throttle pushed half way down and the motor starting with a roar. That was not easy on those motors. Take care Wrench.

 

DOHCmarauder

I agree to a degree with your method, but I caution against any full hard romps all the way to red line. Yes, most of the time it will be OK. But in my experience, there are enough variances in build tolerances that for some motors this may well be the straw that breaks the camels back. Of course there are those that want to deliberately find the weak link early.

I use this method (re-posted below) as my recommendation and it accomplishes what you and Motoman suggest. That is, putting a lot of high pressure against the back of the rings and forcing a tighter early wear in seal:

At least once every driving cycle and after fully up to operating temp, do one good strong take off from stop up to 3500rpm and throttle shift the 5R110 auto tranny. Throttle shifting is when you use enough foot to run the rpms to where you want them then lightly let up and feel the auto shift up, get back firmly on the foot until RPMs are back and continue this through the gears. Practice this with another vehicle to get the feel. After the 500 mile mark do not be afraid to do this up to 4200rpm on occasion. But try to never spin the motor past 3500 unless it is under power and immediately falls off back to lower rpm.