C.J. Ichiban

I always tend to buy my nice cars out of state and road trip them home.

Biggest things:
manually shift them,
avoid lugging the engine
Avoid holding constant revs while on the freeway for too long- just shift up and down through gears 4-7.

In regards to the track- there is a proper brake pad/ rotor bedding in process. You can do it anywhere but it will significantly increase the life of the rotors. In order to get max brake life you should aim to get some pad transfer to the rotors by doing a few hard braking checks from 60-20mph and 80-20mph. If you manage to do about 8-12 of these in succession, drive for 10-15 miles after without any brake pedal then you can park the car and the brakes will be stronger for the track.

Seth Thomas

Is that the secret to making the CJWR Mazdas so fast? Congrats on the CTSCC championship by the way. Steven and Chad deserved it!

Back to being on topic. Break it in how you want to drive the car. If you are going to drive it like a granny all its life then break it in that way. The motor will probably be down a few horsepower compared to one broken with anger but this doesn't matter to the granny driver. If you want to break it in with some anger go ahead.

The motor and drivetrain are broken in during the first 500 miles of driving. The important factor that CJ hit on are the variance in RPMs and load put on the engine. Increasing this slightly over the first 500 miles helps maximize the performance of the motor and the transmission. During so while slightly increasing the Max RPM over this range will allow all the rings, seals, and bearings to seat properly under the different conditions. Also during the first 500 miles the car is usually ran through a few heat cycles as we stop and go between our different destinations. This technique is similar to how our race motors are broken in on the dyno before they are installed in the car. Once they are in the car they are ready to go.

Serge944

This is how I broke in my freshly built 4 liter 996 GT3 and my 991 GT3 just last weekend. Best advice here.

No offense, but those suggesting to rip at it out of the box should just keep that opinion to themselves. This is not what I would consider "advice" by any means.

major dad

Does the advice for brakes above apply to Ceramic's ( PCCBs ) ?

Seth Thomas

Yes it does. I used to have a copy of the McLaren dealer break in procedure for their ceramic brakes. It was very similar to this with a couple of added stops from higher speeds. If I find it I will copy it over.

Dr. G

Every time I try to do these rapid braking series I make myself nauseous.

Serge944

Seth - I'll save you the trouble. I'll add that McLaren's technical procedures are second to none in the automotive industry - they spent a lot of effort developing their service/repair documents.

YellowPMan

Thank you guys for all the serious advice ...of course being a Petrolhead I want to thrash it to the red line...but would prefer to drive it easy now ...and not have it sitting in the workshop for anytime in the future.. Also apparently Porsche can read the Ecu and if over revs are recorded during advised break in , any associated damage caused would void the warranty ...

Also Thanks for the advice on the PCCB break in procedure ..

Ur20v

avoid max load at first (below 500 miles) then build up to 1000 miles, during this time keep varring rpm / load avoiding steady state speeds/loads/rpm and most all allow the oil to come up to operating temp prior to any throttle inputs ove 50%. Change oil and you are good to go.

Doing the brake bed in procedure should be done after the 800 mile mark as you need to work the car a bit.

C.J. Ichiban

serge thanks for posting.

I did that similar procedure (25+ stops) on my 997.1RS with PCCB and ended up with 40 track days or more on the rotors. I replaced the pads 3 times but the rotors lasted forever.

TRAKCAR

Glad I did it right. Manually shifted mostly, did not lug and widely varied revs and speed constantly over a big range. Wasn't good enough at the Ring to do much more than bed in the pads / rotors for the first morning :-)

2006Z06

Hi there, my buddy just picked up his rs on Friday and I mentioned this bed in recommendation to him. It was suggested below that this should be done after engine break-in period. Do you agree? To me, repaid stops should be possible without exceeding 5000 rpm....thx!

Serge944

I think the suggestion to do brake bed-in after engine break-in is sound, as you really need to work your engine to get enough heat into the brakes. In the meantime, your brakes will perform fine on the street during the break-in miles.