Oil blow-by during break-in?

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Hi everyone,

I have a question about my '02 MV Agusta. A friend of mine was riding behind me the other day, and said he noticed a puff of blue smoke (not excessive, but enough to be noticed) when I closed the throttle off after a 10 - 10.5k runup on the engine. Here are the specifics:

There are only 860 miles on this bike -- I purchased it brand new. It has been broken in by the book. In this particular instance, I was riding next to a friend of mine and letting him hear the engine at higher rpms, so I ran the bike up in first to about 10-10.5k rpm and then quickly closed the throttle. That's when my friend said he saw the smoke. I did it twice, and both times it smoked; again not excessive, but enough to be noticed.

I find it interesting that this is occuring under vaccuum (throttle closed) and not under load (wide open). I'm hoping against all hope that this is because the break-in has not been completed, and the rings have not fully set; but needless to say this concerns me. Looking for your opinions. Is this 'normal'? Should I have this looked at? Could it be something other than oil getting past the rings?

Thanks,

- Steven

-- Steven Gonzales (steven_gonzales@intuit.com), January 13, 2003

Answers

When you are at closed throttle, a huge vacuum in the cylinder exists, which can suck oil past the rings.

This could be semi-normal. I haven't ever checked to see if mine does it... It might.

This is possibly due to your rings not being seated 100%. You should probably take the bike up to full throttle and run it hard a bit. You may still have some chance of getting more seal, but maybe not. This is why it's OK to run the bike hard a few times when it's new to get the rings to seal good.

Andy

-- Andy Ruhl (quadreverb@yahoo.com), January 13, 2003.


did you say blue smoke? i had that excessive blue smoke with a little bit of fire during my road test right after i installed my blueflame pipe system. and i said WHOA!!! nice product! the name itself literally meant it. after that, i noticed that my manifold wasnt installed properly. after that, i cant see that blue flame 'er smoke ever again.

and one question.. can i put NOS in my system? i have a honda B-16 fogger system in my car garage.

-- dza (dzaprojects@yahoo.co.uk), January 14, 2003.


I think that is normal for this bike. I've always assumed (hey, you know what happens when you assume) that it wasn't really oil smoke, but some gas by-product of EFI. Before I got my bike nearly 2 years ago, I downloaded a video from FBF that showed them dynoing an Oro model, and it did the same thing.

One thing I will tell you is that I too followed the break-in procedure as outlined in manual, but the engine didn't really "come alive" until I had about 2500 miles on it. Now with 5500 miles, it really feels strong.

-- Brad Cowell (bcowell@sbcglobal.net), January 14, 2003.


My bike appears to be getting stronger all the time too. I've only got about 2700 on it, but it is as strong as ever, and surprises me every time I ride it at how fast it feels. Obviously, it's been a while since I've ridden the R1...

-- Andy Ruhl (quadreverb@yahoo.com), January 14, 2003.

The blue smoke happen to mine when I had the bike on a dyno. Like your experience it seems after full throttle it produced a pretty good puff. I have 3200 miles on my 2002 F4S and I was told that some motors need a lot more time to break in due to the synthectic oils that are used rather than a blend or just plain quality oil. Also, for those you in the know are cylinders coated which would prolong the break in period? Ray

-- Ray Lorente...Bay Area Calif (ray1617@yahoo.com), January 15, 2003.


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