Mick,


I would not call this an opinion issue.

There are right ways and wrong ways. Most modelers would have somewhat different techniques to do the same thing.

BUT... There are wrong ways too.


About 10 months ago I went to the trouble of starting a thread in RCU, about 'break-in of tapered-bore engines', because where I fly I saw engines being destroyed outright, or winding up power-less. You can search RCU for it.

In 12/2002 I entered an article in a local R/C web site (you and your computer will need to read Hebrew, if you want to see it), about the same issue.


Tapered-bore engines; ABC, AAC, ABN, Plasma Ceramic, need a slightly rich, two-cycle, WOT, high RPM break-in.

Cast iron ringed engines and lapped meehanite piston engines need a very rich, four-cycle break-in, with relatively low RPM at lower temperatures, to break-in properly. Plenty of heat cycling is also needed in them, to anneal the cast iron.

Doing it the other way in either type of engine, will have a mild case scenario of your sport engine living 10-15 hours, before needing an overhaul, instead of 100-250 hours. I do not want to talk about the worst cases...