How many "break-in" miles before switching to synthetic oil?

[elagache]

Dear mid-60s Buick caregivers,

*Sufferin' succotash!*  I've been searching all over the web without success.  It's time to punt and see what you guys think.  When Mike Tomaszewski rebuilt Biquette's engine, he recommended against switching to any sort of synthetic oil for (if I recall correctly) about 2000 miles to allow the rings to seat properly.  I'm having a horrible time getting miles on my trusty wagon, having only managed about 500 miles in the past year.  The oil really should be changed at this point and I'm trying to decide how close I am to being able to switch to something like Brad Penn's semi-synthetic oil.

So do you guys stick to dino oil for while before switching to synthetics, and if so, for how many miles?

A curious mind would like to know!

Cheers, Edouard 

[yachtsmanbill]

Yo Ed... think about what youre saying. Pull up to Crack Lube for a 39.00 oil change and lube job, and a free washer juice fill up and give the kids a thrill at seeing an antique. I used to take one of my Model T Fords to the quickie place along with a 15/16" strap wrench. The drain plug flats were only raised about 1/8". I showed the kid how to drain the 4 quarts out, then had him look for the filter. Hahah...
   No filter, rather a screen under the inspection cover on top of the transmission to catch all the cotton lint off the transmission band linings. Six screws and a reusable gasket. They shared the same oil bath.

 Dont overthink the oil thing.  Bill

[TrunkMonkey]

Since you have 500 and roller cam and lifters,  you should be fine to wait for the next nice day you have, take to the freeway and nail it on the on ramp, (from about 10-20MPH) and hold it till you hit about 80, (or merge speed) merge, drive a few miles, get off the next exit and back on the ramp and do it again. Letting the billy-goat shift from WOT will be fine.

Repeat a half dozen times, then change the oil to what you like.  I run dino oil with ZDDP in my nailhead because it is flat tappet cam and stock rockers. But I will likely run a synth in my 430 (built much the same as yours) after break in.

Seating the rings correctly requires a few strong pulls once fully warmed up, and a few minutes of recovery time between pulls.

It allows the rings and walls to build sufficient heat that the peaks on the walls from honing are taken off and the rings tempered a bit. If you "baby it" (for most of the engine life) the harder rings (as in what have been used for a while now) sometimes do not seat as well. But we are also talking about a car that is not driven a lot of miles as would be in a daily driver, so the issue is not anything to get worried over.

Similar to bedding breaks, or hardening gears in a transmission or rear end.

A lot of old owner manual "break in procedures were more about getting the person familiar to the vehicle.

[elagache]

Dear Michael and mid-60s Buick owners who's cars are members of the family,

Since you have 500 and roller cam and lifters,  you should be fine to wait for the next nice day you have, take to the freeway and nail it on the on ramp, (from about 10-20MPH) and hold it till you hit about 80, (or merge speed) merge, drive a few miles, get off the next exit and back on the ramp and do it again. Letting the billy-goat shift from WOT will be fine.

Repeat a half dozen times, then change the oil to what you like. 

Okay, thanks for the break in procedure!  I'm not sure when I can try your recipe, but I was definitely try to do this!

I run dino oil with ZDDP in my nailhead because it is flat tappet cam and stock rockers. But I will likely run a synth in my 430 (built much the same as yours) after break in.

I'm not sure it is enough of an incentive, but Richard Widman's paper encourages the switch to synthetic oils which include ZDDP for a classic car:

https://www.widman.biz/Corvair/English/Links/Oil.html

That's the sort of oil he uses in his 1965 Corvair with a stock engine.  Since the guy owns a petroleum distributorship in south America and has 3 classic cars, he must know what he is doing!

Widman also makes a recommendation for Brad Penn (now called PennGrade) semi-synthetic oil. 

https://penngrade1.com/products/high-performance-oils/penngrade-1-partial-synthetic-high-performance-oil-sae-10w-30/

Mike Tomaszewski and a bunch of guys on this forum also favor Brad Penn, so I think I'll switch over to that when I'm ready.

Thanks again for the tip!

Cheers, Edouard 

[elagache]

Dear Bob and mid-60s Buick owners who are emotionally attached to their cars,

I guess I missed something along the way. wasn't that a brand new engine? you had to have it rebuilt?

Not to bore everybody, but in a nutshell the engine that Jim Weise built for Biquette only lasted 3 months before the rear crankshaft bearing failed.  Rather than furthering a sore point, I asked Mike Tomaszewski  and TA-Performance to repair the engine at my expense.  It didn't come back until 2015.  Alas, that wasn't the end of the story.  In late 2016 the engine developed valve train noise issues and the heads started to leak again.  So I sent the engine back to TA-Performance where they found that the head castings were so porous that they had to be replaced.  Mike also switched from Morel to Johnson roller rockers.  Since then the engine has been doing fine, but obviously, I haven't been able to put on as many miles as you would have expected if the engine had worked properly from the Autumn of 2013.

Sometimes all you can do is take each surprise as they come.

Oh well, . . . . . . Edouard 

[yachtsmanbill]

Thats not the first horror story Ive heard. Hmm.   Bill