I'm curious to see if there's any correlation between break in method and oil consumption. Mine was a by the book break in procedure, easy does it just like KHI says.. right now I'm either burning or leaking a lot of oil, 800ml low after 1500 miles. That's a lot for these bikes I would think. Jury is still out on whether it's going out the tail pipe or leaking past the valve cover gasket though. Once I plug that leak and get a fresh oil change I'll track her carefully. Tail pipe's dry so it might just be the valve cover leak is worse than I thought.....no puddle on the garage floor though.

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 6/10/2009 @ 3:13 PM *

I did a lot of reading on the topic and decided, for various reasons, to follow a 'hard' engine break-in procedure with three oil & two filter changes within the first 600 miles. No chugging. No wheelies. No burn-outs. I was firm but kind.

Personally I wonder if the Kawasaki 'soft' break in is more to do with giving people a chance to get used to the power & handling of the bike, rather than for the good of the engine. Can you imagine any bike manufacturer selling a high performance motorcycle and insisting owners "redline the engine in every gear" to break the engine in? No way - from a legal point of view if nothing else! No matter if it would be better for the engine that way or not. Also if there were any problems with the brakes or assembly of the bike, it's only going to make things worse if issues occur at high speed - before Kawasaki (through it's dealers) have a chance to check that it's all tight and good at the first service. Basically, I wonder if the soft break-in is more to do with safety than anything else.

Kawasaki redline each engine before it leaves the factory. The dealers redline the bike after assembly. Customers redline the demo bikes. A lot of owner's redline their bikes from the get go. I don't see enough Kawasaki's (or Honda/Suzuki/Yamaha's etc etc) blowing up around me to be convinced it's an issue.

* Last updated by: AussieNinja on 6/10/2009 @ 4:48 PM *

Hey Kruz- I broke mine in probabley softer than anyone here. No leaks and it doesn't appear to consume any oil. Almost 8000 miles.

I thought I was burning oil a while back because I checked my oil level glass after and the oil was just barely visible. This was after 1000 miles from oil change. There have been no oil drips on the floor under the bike. I added almost a quart which brought the level up to max and have ridden it another 1000 miles with no drop in level. I think the ambient temp has a huge impact on the cold check of oil level. It was a chilly day when it looked low - I bet it was just ordinary contraction of matter due to decrease in temperature. Has it been chilly in Texas lately?

Also, with all the comparos you must be doing against the CBR, I bet you're riding the 14 pretty hard. The oil that gets blown up to the airbox from harder opperation just drips down the tube and out onto the road. You might be doing enough extreme riding on the 14 to cause a notable drop in oil level through blow-by.

Good luck, buddy. Hope you solve it - hope it's nothing to even worry about.

Next bike, I am doing a peak rpm break in. This will actually give me more peace of mind than a manufacturer recomended break in. I have more anxiety with possibley less than optimum hp than I do longevity.

Rook

The Kruzster wrote:
I'm curious to see if there's any correlation between break in method and oil consumption. Mine was a by the book break in procedure, easy does it just like KHI says.. right now I'm either burning or leaking a lot of oil, 800ml low after 1500 miles. That's a lot for these bikes I would think. Jury is still out on whether it's going out the tail pipe or leaking past the valve cover gasket though. Once I plug that leak and get a fresh oil change I'll track her carefully. Tail pipe's dry so it might just be the valve cover leak is worse than I thought.....no puddle on the garage floor though.

Kruz

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I broke my busa in semi-close to the book................it doesn't use a drop of oil and runs like a clock. My 14 was broken in before I got it with 1600 miles on it. The only oil its using is whats leaking from the valve cover, otherwise it also runs like a top I would suspect oil being pushed out the crankcase breather. Check your airbox drain bulb for oil...its on the leftside bottom, right in front of your left foot

Kruz.....

What type oil are you using and how many mile is on the bike?

Kruz.....

What type oil are you using and how many mile is on the bike?

Rotella 5W40 synthetic and 11,200 miles.

Kruz

Not worried at this stage, I'll fix the leaking valve cover first to remove that variable then check very carefully to see if it's using anymore oil.

Rook, your right, I normally check oil when the bike and oil is hot and the oil fully expanded. This time I checked in the cool of the morning (70 degrees F) before the ride so you may be onto something there with the temperature thing. I cranked up the bike and ran it about three minutes per the manual and then shut her down for about three minutes and checked, oil was prolly still cold and contracted. This is another variable that could affect the sight glass reading. Good tip bro...thanks, I may now be over serviced. These sight glasses can be very misleading, we use one on the gearbox of our turbodiesel aircraft engine and it is a constant source of problems with new owners until they get a "system" going.

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 6/11/2009 @ 10:34 AM *

I found a substantial different in the level with a cold engine and a fully warm engine. I check it after a ride, after letting it set a few minutes.

You know what, I think that was it. Hot oil is aerated, expanded and all the internal engine part reach operating temp and volume. I'l recheck hot, I'll almost bet I'm now over the full mark.

Kruz

Deal'r said "ride it like you stole it", up to 100 miles, then on dyno at 100 for a tune.

Oil comsumption is too low to tell between changes of about 1500 miles/ea.

* Last updated by: JDC on 6/11/2009 @ 12:25 PM *

I broke it in by the book and in 19k it hasn't used an oz. of oil. I changed the oil at 600, 4800, 10,000, 18,000.

No oil burning, or any oil loss what so ever. I realize it must use some, but it is not enough to measure. I was not so nice to her in the beginning. I change my oil every 2000 KM & Kawi 10-40 SYN. This may not be the best oil, but if you change enough I'm sure it will not matter. So far so good.

JMHO here - It is not real easy to get a precise reading of oil level on a hot check for 3 reasons:

1. The oil has circulated and it takes a very long time for all of it to drip back down to the very bottom of the crankcase. Like an hour, I bet and by that time you're doing a cold check anyway. I think it even takes quite a long time for oil poured in through the fill hole to run past the gears and settle to a trustworthy level.

2. The oil expands from being warmed by the motor. I have even had a hard time getting a reliable reading while filling a warm engine after an oil change. The warm crankcase just makes the oil expand way more than it would cold.

3. The ambient temperature might change by 50 - 90 degrees F from winter to summer but the cold engine to warm engine can swing by a few hundred degrees.

Here's something to think about concerning temperature of liquids and their expansion. Just conjecture on my part, but I do have a little background on heat processing oils for paint.

Oil holds onto heat because it does not evaporate (nearly as much) as water. That's why you can heat oil to 700+ degrees. Water can only go to 212. Any hotter than that and water will turn to steam. With all its capacity to hold onto heat, oil should be able to expand quit a bit more than water which loses volume through evaporation while it gains volume through expansion. My point is that hot oil behaves differently than the hot water we are all used to seeing boiling on the stove.

Rook

Rook, You make a interesting point here. Thermal contraction plays a big role in our bikes performance. I remember back in the old forum one of the members saying he only fills to the low level line? But I do not remember what his reasoning was ? Maybe a HP thing, crank splash bla bla or he felt the oil expanded to the over fill mark ? It would be interesting to see how expansion would show on the looking glass of our bikes if 4.5 L of oil was heated prior fill .

^^That it would. I thought my owners manual recomended cold check only and that seems like that would be the simplest and most consistant way to read the sight glass.

I bet you could drop about a pound from the bike weight by filling the oil to the minimum line. Seems to me that is about 3 liters. I think I'd rather go with a bit more than 4 liters for hard running, though. They do recomend having oil and coolent at max for extreme running conditions. Having more oil instesd of less also helps dilute contaminents, I guess.

Rook

Old race ears trick is. Deep sumps, wind edge tray, low oil level=more HP. Reed is:

The strict definition of windage is the power loss caused by the friction of the oil in the engine coming into non-lubrication contact with the moving parts inside the engine. For the most part, this is oil splashing against the counterweights of the crank as it spins. If there is poor oil control inside a race engine, windage can cause some pretty significant power loss. First, as rpm increases, the amount of powerloss for a given amount of windage increases dramatically. As a liquid,it's the same concept as water in a swimming pool providing little resistance if you slowly dip your hand into it. The feeling of resistance becomes much different if you do a belly flop off the highdive into that same pool. Second, life inside a circle-track race engine is much different than any road-going engine cruising down the interstate. In racing, high-g turns, rough racetracks, and good, old engine vibrations put much more kinetic energy into the oil collected inthe bottom of the pan, which makes oil control much more difficult.

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 6/12/2009 @ 7:24 AM *

Do not mess with the, Rook. He is going to paint you a picture and prove you wrong with his junk science is take your social science and dipstick it, "where the sun don't shine."

Knifedge blade close to my crank throw so I cut the oil off the throweights of the, 'windage tray.'

Broke it in pretty much by the book with the exception of several medium load pulls to 6 or 7 grand....

Kawasaki may redline the motor at the end of the line but that was it for my bike. I guess it helps to have raced with the head tech at the local shop for 25 years. We pulled my bike off the floor and I (yes ME, the tech let me do all the work while he watched threw the battery in it. Oh yeah, the battery had been on a proper charger for about 36 hrs. I then double checked everything I could think of and hit the starter button. Started right up, oil light went out, all the guages were normal, no smoke other than some burn off from the crap stuck in the pipes from the bender. All in all a good day and I KNOW it wasn't beat on by some flunky at the dealership. The even put a gallon of gas in it, handed me a credit card and told me to go fill it up......

3000 miles later and my bike has only been ridden and serviced by me. They even let me do the 600 mile service at the dealership. Charged me $20 for labor and the normal price for oil and filter. I have a record and a dealer reciept in case there is ever a warrenty question AND I did the work. Best of both worlds.... RON

Hub, nye fedge that crank is, sheer that oil does....wurks good,lasts a long time!

Khruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 6/12/2009 @ 12:48 PM *

Luckily I had the chance to break the bike in as HARD as possible, while taking a break every 10 minutes for about 20 minutes to let it cool off.

Following manufacturer's guidelines are what is best for THEM, not what is best for you or the bike.

I stayed under 6k for the first 300mi then oil change and cut loose

Broke it in pretty much like the book, except for a few full throttle high gear pulls after about 400 mi. ( creates heat, helps seat rings) for a few seconds, 18000 mi., zero oil consumption between changes, runs great! I did switch to synthetic after 5000 mi. , but I belive in regular oil for break in - and I change it often, 1000 mi. max with regular, 3000 mi. max with synth - just due to the cost of the stuff, but hey, it's just me - and I do what I want.
Of course it always helps to always be right!

Mine gets broke in by the book -- the book of Bobby which says at the 30 mile mark it is time to do a 1/4 mile run.

I am still actually in the break in process, but I'm just going to suffer through the first 500 miles and try to hold back. Keeping the Rev's under 4k for the first 500 miles has been tough, but I'm almost done with that and from 500-1k miles will try to keep her under 6k.

I also try to keep the rev's moving up and down the range and letting the engine slow me down etc... I've heard a lot of "techniques" for breaking in an engine but the one most people seem to agree on is to keep the rev's from sitting in one spot for too long.

I guess I'm ultra-conservation as far as break ins go. Every motorcycle I've ever had (lots in 30+ years of riding) I've ridden it exactly as recommended in the manual and by the service manager.

At least the first 1,000 miles. After that, all bets are off. :)