Impressions After One Week and 180 break-in Miles

ShelbyQuest18! said:

I have had a number of performance cars in the past, mostly a collection of Corvettes including 1 C4 ZR1 (Lotus Motor Car), a C5 Z06 I supercharged, one C6 ZR1 that I left stock, and two C6 Z06s (fair amount of mod the 427 motors in them). I belonged to an active Corvette club for years that was competition oriented. Each season we ran about 12-14 high speed autox on an old NASCAR 3/8 banked track in Manassas, Va - townhouses there now... We also would go to road tracks like Summit Point WVA, where we would do lapping sessions - especially of their 2 mile track. So I do have a bit of background as a hobbyist, and learned a bit about car set-up, and why I needed to keep my regular job. Although I won a few events, I realized that if I tried to make a living racing, I would be living penniless on the street! LoL.

I have been taking the slow, recommended break-in approach for the first 140 miles - nothing over 4k RPM. Today, I took advantage of a nice quiet two lane with great sightlines and very little traffic to tack on another 40 miles. Twice, I briefly touched 110, and about 6K RPMs, and all seemed fine. I was curious if I would notice any lifting of the hood, since I have heard some stories that over 80 mph, it might to start to occur. Well, not in my car - good.

Car is very responsive in the handling department, steering a bit numb but ok - almost all cars using electric steering are that way. I am sure if Ford had the development money, they would have done more here, but unless you go to super expensive exotics, I do not thing you will see anything much better than what we have. And the gearbox is MUCH better than the Vettes - the clutch seems to be a little something different in its engagement.

Coming from a different sports car background, I DO notice some weight differences, as my last C6 Z06 tipped the scales at under 3100 lbs. Also, I was curious about tire pressures on the Michelin Super Sports, which I left in the stock cold pressure (36 lbs) the car was when I received it. I have run Super Sport tires before and I do realize these were configured for this particular car. They appear to be a bit less aggressive handlers than my pervious Super Sports, which I guess was a small trade-off for better performance in less than ideal weather conditions. I get that, and having now been in Florida for 3 months and observing how quickly sunny skies can turn to brief periods of torrential downpours, I am ok with it. What I am not ok with is 36 lbs cold pressure. I am going to take them down to 32 lbs all around, which I think will reduce a bit of the vagueness I am feeling. I always ran my other Michelins at 32 lbs - we will see.

I would like to see about 300 lbs of effective weight ideally come off. One area that has my attention is the 31 lb stock aluminum wheels (Ford could have made these lighter but for reasons of cost and exacerbating advantages of the CF wheels - didn't). I may look into a set of the Forgeline Aluminum monoblock wheels which should know off about 36 lbs of unsprung rotational mass which is huge - translates into rough equivalent rough 160 lb reduction in unsprung weight.

It appears to be pretty easy to get a bit more h/p and torque especially in low and mid range, and I may go that route too. Two different engines under and over 4000 rpm.

I have not seen any oil usage at all at 180 miles - which if I was having a severe oil problem, would have been noticed. But I will be watching closely over the next few hundred miles as I slowly ratchet up the driving.

I really do like the car - it is something special, and I am looking forward to adventures with the new toy. My observations above were just that - I have always made some changes to my toys. Believe me when I say that some of the Vettes I had seemed only 80% complete as I received them.

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HotLap said:

Nice write up SQ18, appreciate your insight and have noticed several of the same traits during my local canyon runs. I waited until I hit 500 miles to break 5000rpms (was hard but was being cautious). Just hit 6500rpms yesterday and WOW, this is an altogether different beast with the throttle pegged above 4K rpms. It just climbs, excited to get to 1K miles and hit the upper rev range. These cars do have their quirks, but pretty cool/competent nonetheless I have to hand it to Ford for even building this car, as a fairly conservative motor company my hat is off to them for their work with the engine and other track oriented systems these cars contain...

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ShelbyQuest18! said:

Been a bit busy lately, but got up early this AM to put some more break-in miles on the car. Cannot say where I was, but on excellent roads with very little traffic and perfect weather, knocked out another 100 miles of break-in for a total of 350 miles. No tramlining on this excellent road, tire pressures cold at 32 lbs to start. I tried to do a brake burnishing sequence or two while totally alone. First time from speed (low triple digits) the brakes felt a little squirrelly, second time the sequence was a bit better, but still making wonder how well these cars are aligned as delivered from the factory?? Does anyone have any experience with that? I am thinking that it might not hurt to get the alignment double checked?

Practiced varying the RPMs a bit and rowing the tranny. Tranny is excellent, clutch a little strange, shifter seems fine - I am not inclined to change it at this time. Briefly hit 5K a few times, and one very quick touch to 6k RPMs. Checking the oil regularly and "by the book" but the book is pretty vague - just says if oil is between max and min holes, it is "acceptable." Mine has remained pretty close to the top hole, may be down a smidge - not sure. It would be nice if there was some information about how many quarts low the engine would be if oil level was at or just below the bottom hole. Anyone know? Also, given a new engine, and its inevitable break-in including ring seating, not concerned if a little oil is consumed.

Would love to dyno the car after it gets 600-700 miles on it - would that be a problem? Would probably change the break-in oil after the dyno runs....

Thanks!

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