I just bought a new Yamaha EF2000I. The manual says nothing about break in except to change the oil after the first 20 hrs. It calls for 10W30. I bought it for emergency use and it will have to run hard when the power goes out. Should I break it in first under a light load with petroleum oil for several hours and then put Mobil 1 10W 30 so that it's ready for heavy use?
Generator Break In
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MolaKule
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Stay with Mobil 1 10W30.
Run 5 hours and change oil with same.
Run 5 hours and change oil with same.
i just bought a 6500watt generator...I ran it first for 15 min under light load let it cool then hooked it up to my house and ran the ac to put more load on it then changed the oil.
I think I will run it on a light load for about half and then increase the load at half hour intervals for a total of 2 hours. Is it OK to start with Mobil 1 or should I use dyno oil for the break in period?
heres an interesting story about my new generator.
my generator has a 10hp tecumseh engine and a 5250w gen head. it is wired right to the mains on my house so that my entire house is powered. (the mains from the pole are disconnected now)
when i got the thing, the owner manual said to run it for an hour and change the oil, then its broken in. they made no reference to loads or anything.
i filled it with the oil that came with it (generic API SL 10w30), and started it up. i let it run for 5 mins under no load to warm up, and then switched on the house and gave the generator a real workout. i loaded that sucker down untill the 220v lines read 205 volts. that engine was bogging down to almost full throttle to maintain 3600rpm's. i did this for a period of 1 hour. after 1 hour, i changed the oil, which looked great. no metal flakes!
if you havent noticed, i broke the engine in by mototune's instructions.
the first tank of gas lasted only 6 hours, which was disappointing considering it has a 7 gallon tank.
the second tank, 9 hours.
third, 12 hours.
4th 13.5 hours.
5th, 13 hours
6th 14 hours
and so on.
it seems it took almost 35 hours of running for the engine to fully breakin and gain some efficency and lose some internal drag. after the 4th tank of gas, and 28 gallons later, all the subsiquent tanks of gas lasted for between 13 and 14 hours.
breaking the engine in by mototune's instructions yeilds no oil consumption over a 24 hour oil change period. the oil that drains out is only slightly darker than the fresh oil i put in it. the muffler has no soot, only BROWN discolouring on the inside. its not even black!
thats gotta be a first for a small aircooled engine. after 100 hours of running it i pulled the plug to have a look. the plug looked just as nice as my mums honda crv plugs. a nice tan colour, no soot, no blisters, the plug looked perfect.
the engine is usually running at about 50-70% throttle. if you apply this to mileage, like say a car driving at 75 mph for 24 hours, that would be around a 1600 mile oil change intrval, which i think is about right for a small aircooled flathead engine that has no oil pump, no filter, and a carburettor.
besides, at .6 quart capacity, it costs 43 cents a day to change the oil.
so there you have my expierence with breaking in a new generator.
my generator has a 10hp tecumseh engine and a 5250w gen head. it is wired right to the mains on my house so that my entire house is powered. (the mains from the pole are disconnected now)
when i got the thing, the owner manual said to run it for an hour and change the oil, then its broken in. they made no reference to loads or anything.
i filled it with the oil that came with it (generic API SL 10w30), and started it up. i let it run for 5 mins under no load to warm up, and then switched on the house and gave the generator a real workout. i loaded that sucker down untill the 220v lines read 205 volts. that engine was bogging down to almost full throttle to maintain 3600rpm's. i did this for a period of 1 hour. after 1 hour, i changed the oil, which looked great. no metal flakes!
if you havent noticed, i broke the engine in by mototune's instructions.
the first tank of gas lasted only 6 hours, which was disappointing considering it has a 7 gallon tank.
the second tank, 9 hours.
third, 12 hours.
4th 13.5 hours.
5th, 13 hours
6th 14 hours
and so on.
it seems it took almost 35 hours of running for the engine to fully breakin and gain some efficency and lose some internal drag. after the 4th tank of gas, and 28 gallons later, all the subsiquent tanks of gas lasted for between 13 and 14 hours.
breaking the engine in by mototune's instructions yeilds no oil consumption over a 24 hour oil change period. the oil that drains out is only slightly darker than the fresh oil i put in it. the muffler has no soot, only BROWN discolouring on the inside. its not even black!
thats gotta be a first for a small aircooled engine. after 100 hours of running it i pulled the plug to have a look. the plug looked just as nice as my mums honda crv plugs. a nice tan colour, no soot, no blisters, the plug looked perfect.
the engine is usually running at about 50-70% throttle. if you apply this to mileage, like say a car driving at 75 mph for 24 hours, that would be around a 1600 mile oil change intrval, which i think is about right for a small aircooled flathead engine that has no oil pump, no filter, and a carburettor.
besides, at .6 quart capacity, it costs 43 cents a day to change the oil.
so there you have my expierence with breaking in a new generator.
Keep in mind that when you first turn on your generator after a power outage, refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners will put a heavy load on the generator until the thermostat eventually cuts the compressors off, therefore you would have more consumption during the first hours when the generator is powering everything at one time. Of course an broken in engine will run more efficiently than a new engine but I have a hard time with the concept of breaking an engine at full power. The word abuse comes to mind and eventhough it could be the right thing to do, I don't see myself doing it.
The idea is to load the ring pack so the rings will seat well rather than glaze under a light load.
Is this a new method for breakin engines? Every engine that I have owned, 2 or 4 cycle, start with low rpms with some spurts but basically avoiding high speed operation for any prolonged time and changing rpms frequently.
cavitating, I think you're on the right track. The only fear of glazing the cylinder bores I'd have is running the engine for any length of time at moderate to high RPM with no load on it at all.
Vary the speed and vary the load for the first 10-12 hours of operation. And change the oil every 5 hours or so for the first 20 hours.
Because you are going to leave the oil in the machine for such a short time at first, I think using Mobil 1 at this stage is a waste. Consider it only after the motor is broken in to your satisfaction and you'll be leaving it in for tens of hours or a season, whichever come first.
--- Bror Jace
Vary the speed and vary the load for the first 10-12 hours of operation. And change the oil every 5 hours or so for the first 20 hours.
Because you are going to leave the oil in the machine for such a short time at first, I think using Mobil 1 at this stage is a waste. Consider it only after the motor is broken in to your satisfaction and you'll be leaving it in for tens of hours or a season, whichever come first.
--- Bror Jace
I do appreciate everyones input. This is a great forum!
you cant vary the speed on a generator. they run at 3600 rpm's and have no manual throttle. (well 98% of them are like this anyways) they require this rpm to maintain the right voltage and cycles. if you rigged a generator to manually change rpm (like with a lever) youre power appliances would stop working when the rpm's go down. about the only things that would work are lights.
you can vary the load, but i like to highly load them during breakin like the mototune guy says to.
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm
there is the website detailing how to break in an engine under load.
you can vary the load, but i like to highly load them during breakin like the mototune guy says to.
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm
there is the website detailing how to break in an engine under load.
Cryptokid:
On my original post as wrote that it was a EF2000I but I really meant EF2800I.
This is an inverter generator and the rpms increase or decrease depending on the wattage demand. Even if it was a regular generator running at 3600 rpms all the time, it is not the same to run an engine at 3600 rpms wiht a 25% load than it is running at 3600 rpms at 90% load. I think the load demand would make a difference on a brand new engine being broken in regardless of the rpms.
On my original post as wrote that it was a EF2000I but I really meant EF2800I.
This is an inverter generator and the rpms increase or decrease depending on the wattage demand. Even if it was a regular generator running at 3600 rpms all the time, it is not the same to run an engine at 3600 rpms wiht a 25% load than it is running at 3600 rpms at 90% load. I think the load demand would make a difference on a brand new engine being broken in regardless of the rpms.
them yamis are slick generators.
i guess each person has their own way of breaking in an engine.
i guess each person has their own way of breaking in an engine.
old but related for sure. my preowned but new 500 mile vic hammer was using some oil, i took it on a back road + ran up to max RPM repeatedly in 3rd gear i believe, cooling a bit between runs with normal riding + dumping cheap vic 20-40 semi syn for mobil I 10-40 likely most group III fake synthetic, BUT that was the end of consumption to this day!!
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