Teds method on the Dyno is the best way, BUT! many of us are just back yard shade tree mechanics without the luxury of having a dyno. I just have a homemade stand on wheels I can roll out of the garage and fire the engines up to break in the cam, check for leaks or any other possible problem. Much easier to re torque the heads, set valves etc then when its in the car.

I remember an older tech bulletin for the Chrysler Hemi drag race engines that simply stated ‘Make six half throttle passes to seat in the rings’.  The dyno does this much quicker and in a controlled environment.  If there’s a problem, it’s best that it happens on the dyno and not in the vehicle.  I dyno a large number of restored Corvette engines not for the power numbers but to simply insure that the engines are in good condition before being installed in their chassis.  Nothing worse than doing a bunch of detail work on the engine compartment and then having to pull the engine for a problem that could have been found before installing it in the car.
 
Consider the water brake on the dynometer as being an adjustable torque converter.  The dyno can be used to simulate the loads imposed on an engine both in normal driving and full throttle driving.  When loading an engine on the dyno to seat the rings, I’ll simply put the engine at roughly 100HP for a couple of minutes at a time which would be like climbing a stiff hill or pulling a trailer.  The rpms for this are kept at some value less than 3000 rpms.  The blowby from the breather can be observed to slowly diminish during this procedure which is also another good indicator that the rings are being properly seated.
 
When making or modifying a ‘map’ for a fuel injected engine, the engine will be ‘driven’ on the dyno similar to what is occurring in an automobile by varying the throttle and load controls to simulate running through the gears.  By doing this and observing the various instrumentation that’s included with the dyno, the ‘map’ can be modified to improve the engine performance and/or drivability characteristics.  It’s much quicker and more accurate doing it this way than taking the car out and doing it by ‘seat of the pants’.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Ted could you explain this one a lit more "the engine is being loaded and unloaded repeatedly against a water brake so that the rings are being seated to the freshly honed cylinders"  Is the common on dynos ?  Ive always thought it best to have the engine in the car for load.



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

Thanks Paul and Charlie, that is great info.

Most manufacturers make that info available in product information sheets.  For instance, Valvoline conventional has .083/.076 zinc/phosphorus.

That Penzoil works out to .072/.055.


Lawrenceville, GA

In a study made by Blackstone Industries commissioned by Gil Baumgartner (TBird restoration expert) an 80's popular oil (Pennzoil 10W/40) contained 547 ppm of phosphorus and 715 ppm of zinc.  I don' know what the aggregate would be as ZDDP, but it seems even in the 80's the oil had less than the better grades of today's oil that run 1000 or so  of ZDDP.



54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ

the cat plant i visited dynode 200 per day, not that numbers mean much,failures of coarse are the issue .I had several failures on fe 352 ,but was my fault reusing lifters that where marginal.failures where within 20 miles of use, as well high spring pressures, in 1964 tried putting a 406 cam and springs in my 352 using rockers and lifters from 332 solid lifter engine. expensive money saver,but good lesson.

I don't know if the info in the video is relevant to old Y blocks. I ran mine on a stand through a few heat cycles. then let cool and then re torqued the heads and ran up to temp again to set the valves. This was the first time I did it that way, in the old days we just put rebuild straight into the car and drove it :-)
Questions and more questions.
The question I always had was how did the factory do it?
Did they actually run the engines in before installing?
Before "THE SKY IS FALLING, THEY REDUCED THE ZINC" how many PPM was the zinc in the crappy oils we had in the 50-60's and cams didn't go flat?
I broke my engine in with no special break in oil or additives, just plane Valvoline 10-30 conventional and now 8500 miles and all is fine..

I’ll weigh in on this seeing as how I run in two-three engines per week on the engine dyno.
 
If there is going to be a camshaft/tappet problem, it begins right at the initial start up.  The run procedure after that initial startup will not help that particular problem but extended running will make it more obvious and possibly spread it to other areas.  In other words, extended running once the problem begins simply makes it worse.  It may take 10-30 minutes for a wear issue to become bad enough that it becomes perceptible.  My break in procedure simply has the engine running at 2000-2500 rpms for twenty minutes and then stopping the engine for a cool down.  Because I’m breaking in the engines on an engine dynometer, the engine is being loaded and unloaded repeatedly against a water brake so that the rings are being seated to the freshly honed cylinders.  If there are any strange noises or observations during that initial run cycle, then the engine is shut down immediately so potential problems can be addressed sooner rather than later without as much damage being performed to the parts in question.  While the engine is still hot after shutting it down, the valve lash is checked for any problems and adjusted accordingly.  The engine is then allowed to cool to ambient temperatures before starting it again; this allows a full heat cycle to be put into the piston rings and valve springs.  When possible, the engine is allowed to cool overnight before starting it again.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

some 20years ago i visited one of cats engine assembly  plant,when engines wher completed they wher filled with hot oil and water,on start up oil pressure ok water temp stable aprox 10mine run,then full rpm and full load for 15 min.(hooked to a dyne and rune at loads they wher desighned for. removed frome dyne painted  shipped to customer. very few if any failures.
some engines  that wher low on power went to special spot for repair,re dynode.
when i worked in victoria ,cat dealer. we rebuilt 3208 engines ,they wher a flat tappet cam pushrod and rockers 225 hp small truck engines. we dynoed them for 1hr at full load, painted and sold.the year end we had built 50  had no failures.
so my exp is the sugested breakin that is popular on this site is wast of time. put the thing together correctly  with aditives on the cam for startup. prelude and you ready to go. just my take