7k or not 7k

Roger that Charles Foxtrot- Thrash it like it's a stolen bike with no one looking for it!

I cannot get over all these ideas of how this Italian masterpiece should be handled with such kid gloves and pussy footing around staring at the tach during break in. Not to sound like a "know it all" but I am very close to many Master Tech's high up in the Ducati chain, and every one of them agrees with this break in approach! Vary the rpm's, lots of roll on's under load, and lots of shifting thru the gearbox under high rpm (did not say excessive redline however) I have broken in 5 of my last Ducati's this way and NEVER had any engine issues whatsoever, certainly not something such as DNA trying to void a warranty for exceeding rpms! Mark my word- those who baby their bikes are going to end up with future piston ring issues down the road. Yeah yeah , I know what the book states too!
Screw 4k, 7k, and worrying about a true racebike engine that obviously has been ran for many hours before you ever picking it up as your own. Drive that thing like your Valentino Rossi and never look back!

Nice post, I agree...

Gunny Fitz said:

Roger that Charles Foxtrot- Thrash it like it's a stolen bike with no one looking for it!

I cannot get over all these ideas of how this Italian masterpiece should be handled with such kid gloves and pussy footing around staring at the tach during break in. Not to sound like a "know it all" but I am very close to many Master Tech's high up in the Ducati chain, and every one of them agrees with this break in approach! Vary the rpm's, lots of roll on's under load, and lots of shifting thru the gearbox under high rpm (did not say excessive redline however) I have broken in 5 of my last Ducati's this way and NEVER had any engine issues whatsoever, certainly not something such as DNA trying to void a warranty for exceeding rpms! Mark my word- those who baby their bikes are going to end up with future piston ring issues down the road. Yeah yeah , I know what the book states too!
Screw 4k, 7k, and worrying about a true racebike engine that obviously has been ran for many hours before you ever picking it up as your own. Drive that thing like your Valentino Rossi and never look back!

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+1

The only thing I avoid on new engines is sustained high load, high heat, high rpm pulls in the tall gears (ie. 5th and 6th). The rest I just ride it like I would normally, full RPM range, lots of shifting and using lots of varying RPM's. Can't wait for it to be broken in and I'll get dyno'd at time of first service.

Chris

I've had mine a week in generally stick to 6k but have also been up to 12 too! And also seen 170 mph on the clock!!
Loving the bike. After 8000 rpm it transforms it's self!

Gunny Fitz said:

Screw 4k, 7k, and worrying about a true racebike engine that obviously has been ran for many hours before you ever picking it up as your own. Drive that thing like your Valentino Rossi and never look back!

Click to expand...

Hey Gunny Fitz,

I am a German engineer for internal combustion engines and have been to the Ducati plant in Bologna (Borgo Panigale) in 2006. Not a single of the engines is fired up before the assembly of the bikes (or was in 2006, doubt they changed that). They only do a cold test, which means the engines are turned on a special test bench without being fired up. This test bench has microphones which detect irregularities in the sound of the engine and therefore quality problems. In addition the required torque is measured to turn the engine.
This kind of test is not as dependable as a real firing but has time and cost advantages. Ducati produced over 40.000 bikes in 2011 which results in 110 bikes everyday (assuming they are working 365 days a year). Even if the engines would be only fired for one hour (including the connection of the engine to the test cell (gasoline, exhaust gases etc.)), which is a very short time, that would mean that Ducati would have to have at least five of these test benches (again assuming every test bench works 24/7/365 without a problem.
The only test benches I saw where 12 or 14 test benches used for engine development (three of those are only for the corse department).

The first and only time the engines are fired in the production plant is when the bikes are almost finished and tested on a dyno (for about 10 minutes as far as I remember). Therefore the engines are not run for many hours before they are shipped to the dealers. I don't know what the dealers do before they give the bike to the customer but I doubt that they let the bikes idle for many ours!

But I aggree with your running in procedure, we do it the same way at our production plant (marine diesel engines). The engines are warmed at low loads and afterwards see the 100% load for a few minutes. The whole test takes a little over an hour. Afterwards the oil is changed and that's it.

Of course our engines do not have an average piston speed which is nearly as high as the Superquattro engine (we have a stroke of 157mm and max rpms of 2300 which equals in an average piston speed of "only" 12 m/s while the superquattro has a stroke of 60,8 mm and max rpms of 10750 which equals in a piston speed of 21,8 m/s).

Just wanted to clear things up a little bit and don't want to upset anyone.

Greetings
Mike

I think he meant that the superquadro (or superquattro now that they're Audis too) engine design was well tested ("many hours") during it's design stage. Not that every engine that comes off the line is run in for many hours before they are shipped. I think anyway, that's how I read that.

What about varying rpm and load on the bike for all gears up to 6000rpm? As oppose to run all gears up to 10,000rpm during run in period.

The important thing is "running all gears on varying load" rather than rpm.

Gunny Fitz said:

Roger that Charles Foxtrot- Thrash it like it's a stolen bike with no one looking for it!

I cannot get over all these ideas of how this Italian masterpiece should be handled with such kid gloves and pussy footing around staring at the tach during break in. Not to sound like a "know it all" but I am very close to many Master Tech's high up in the Ducati chain, and every one of them agrees with this break in approach! Vary the rpm's, lots of roll on's under load, and lots of shifting thru the gearbox under high rpm (did not say excessive redline however) I have broken in 5 of my last Ducati's this way and NEVER had any engine issues whatsoever, certainly not something such as DNA trying to void a warranty for exceeding rpms! Mark my word- those who baby their bikes are going to end up with future piston ring issues down the road. Yeah yeah , I know what the book states too!
Screw 4k, 7k, and worrying about a true racebike engine that obviously has been ran for many hours before you ever picking it up as your own. Drive that thing like your Valentino Rossi and never look back!

Click to expand...

I would LOVE IT if somehow we could get a definitive answer as to weather Ducati would deny an engine warranty claim down the line based on run-in history stored (is it?) in the ECU and their ability to recall (can they?) the info to show "abuse" during run in.
I really want to run my bike in as above, but just can't afford to take a risk in the unlikely event of an engine drama down the line.

What say you?
j.

CHarles foxtrot said:

I was told to ride it like I stole it to seat the rings, and that babying it would cause poor ring seating and excess oil consumption. This is from the head tech at my dealer.

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+1 I was told the same thing by the sales guy @ my dealer.

To my German Engineer Friend Mike: That was some VERY good info my friend!
Danke!

In response to ram909 and what his dealer stated, mine (who is a Master Ducati tech) was the one who told me to run the P**s out of it and drive it like a Moto GP bike right off the showroom floor. It sure would be a good bit of info to hear what the Company itself says!

Well, I just hung up the phone with Ducati North America. As a factory supported race team till late last year and a winner of the Daytona 200 2011, I was able to have a somewhat candid conversation with them.

I have broken in ( run in ) all my superbikes on the dyno in the past including my personal track bikes.

Ducati sent a dealer bulletin out on April 22 tell dealers to advise their clients to adhere to the Break-in recommendations on page 202 of the manual.

Ducati is unable to advise against this for obvious reasons.

With that said, they take many 1199's to the track for demo rides and press releases with zero or low miles and NO PROBLEMS have been discovered.

The only reason I made the call is because this motor is different than any other motor I have ever had, the piston speed is insane and I wondered if problems had arose yet, none that was shared with me.

To add to this, i have no choice but to take my 1199S to the track on the 1st and run the .... out of it with only 150 miles on the clock.

I guess I will take some oil with me ... lol

doctorj said:

To add to this, i have no choice but to take my 1199S to the track on the 1st and run the .... out of it with only 150 miles on the clock.

I guess I will take some oil with me ... lol

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Put it in your aero hump with a feeder line to the oil filler cap...

So the question arises; why would Ducati want you to do 7k, rather than full rpm and vary it? There must be a logical reason for this...

DeltaIV said:

So the question arises; why would Ducati want you to do 7k, rather than full rpm and vary it? There must be a logical reason for this...

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Here's a theory. It is always about money. Ducati warrants operation, not performance.

The objective of hard break in, which is not inherently the same as high rpm is maximizing ring sealing to maximize performance. The risk of hard operation is always going to be failure.

After having sold a product which is guaranteed to operate, any manufacturer has little incentive to encourage their customers to optimize them for performance at the risk of the operation of the product if they are guaranteeing the operation of the product, not the performance of the product.

Ray916MN said:

Here's a theory. It is always about money. Ducati warrants operation, not performance.

The objective of hard break in, which is not inherently the same as high rpm is maximizing ring sealing to maximize performance. The risk of hard operation is always going to be failure.

After having sold a product which is guaranteed to operate, any manufacturer has little incentive to encourage their customers to optimize them for performance at the risk of the operation of the product if they are guaranteeing the operation of the product, not the performance of the product.

Click to expand...

My thoughts align, so if I may extending that logic; I would assume for your average consumer with a mix of mainly road riding by the book break in for maximum reliability would be the way to go. For a race team looking to maximise performance and not necessarily interested in reliability over >30km's the opposite would be true.

*One other thing I'm not sure about is the consequences of running in on a dyno when the ram air effect on the motorcycle is not experienced. Does it decrease releiability as the engine is stressed in a completely different way? Or is the same because of the upper rev range is also reached under lets say 1st gear and then only power output would be a misread?

**I'm not an engineer...so If I'm talking utter cr@p please chime in.

I talked to a colleague of mine who has been working in the design department of our engines.
He confirmed that our engines see the full load just after warming up and that this is not a problem at all.
But he also aggreed with me that the very high piston speeds of the Superquattro might cause problems in the beginning. The piston rings need to settle (or however that is called in English) and by doing that they wear a little bit. This means friction and the higher the piston speed, the higher the temperature of the piston ring due to friction while settling (the oil film is not cooling the rings down).
But please keep in mind that the piston rings nowadays are a lot better (tolerances) than those used a few decades ago.
Therefore the dyno run in sounds good for me.
But I prefer to run the engine in like it is stated in the manual. But that is only my personal preference and not necessarily the only right way.

joshinthecity said:

I would LOVE IT if somehow we could get a definitive answer as to weather Ducati would deny an engine warranty claim down the line based on run-in history stored (is it?) in the ECU and their ability to recall (can they?) the info to show "abuse" during run in.
I really want to run my bike in as above, but just can't afford to take a risk in the unlikely event of an engine drama down the line.

What say you?
j.

Click to expand...

As a MMI graduate , and former tech , I can tell you first hand , when it came time for the factory tech-rep's to make a decision on whether or not to approve a warrenty claim , more times than not , they'd ask us if we felt like the guy had abused the bike or not. Sometimes they would ask what kind of attitude the customer had. Basiclly it was left up to us techs. Moral to the story............keep a good repore with the guys working on your rides. It may save you alot of headaches down the road.