Product Test: Oil to Make Engine Break In Less Painful

When it comes to engine break-in, rumors, rituals and horror stories abound. There is no denying that this is a particularly critical moment in the life-cycle of any engine on account of the fact that wear rates are at their absolute highest.

Years ago when machining processes weren’t quite as refined as they are today and oil formulas didn’t offer the type of protection of today’s blends, damage to engine internals during improper break-in were quite common.

We here at ATV Connection aren’t big on instilling a false sense of security when it comes to such matters, but we have undoubtedly witnessed massive improvements in terms of engine break-in troubles throughout the years.

Further aiding this positive trend along, we recently had an opportunity to sample a product from AMSOIL specifically designed to make that break-in period even more painless while providing priceless peace of mind.

Called AMSOIL Break-In Oil SAE 30, we picked up a few bottles of the viscous red fluid from our local dealer at a very reasonable $7 per quart.

So what makes Break-In Oil different from standard synth oil you ask? The answer is high levels of zinc and phosphorus, which are proven to provide additional anti-wear properties.

Piston-ring sealing/ seating is another major benefit to running the break-in formulation as well as increased film strength to coat and protect the rod and main bearings.

If all of this sounds like nothing but marketing hyperbole, think of it like this: A freshly homed cylinder may look smooth to the naked eye but it in fact contains countless peaks and valleys. A strong film of no-friction modifier heavy oil levels it all out, providing the piston/ rings a perfect surface to slide upon. Additionally, providing the rings a tighter seal actually increases horsepower.

We’d love to tell you that we dissected our freshly rebuilt Raptor 660 engine to verify the molecular miracles taking place here but alas, we have to take the AMSOIL engineers’ collective word for it. What we can state with certainty is that the Break-In Oil cost roughly the same as the synthetic we usually run and the break-in on our freshly rebuilt high-performance engine went without hitch. This is cheap insurance!

More info can be found at AMSOIL’s site: www.amsoil.com