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How many km's should be driven with a lower speed to setup the bore for a Royal Enfield Classic 350, what is the minimum speed for that duration and how many km's should we maintain that lower speed?

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  • This is a question for @DucatiKiller. There are many different ways I've seen for breaking in a build for both bikes and cars ... I'll leave this one to someone who can speak more authoritative than I!
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Commented Feb 24, 2015 at 15:44

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I'd like to pretend I'm an authority on this kind of stuff but I just have another opinion, just like most.

Here are some technical differences between a modern bike and your 'new' Royal Enfield.

Modern bikes have a coating on the inside of the cylinder wall on top of the iron (essentially) sleeve...or in some cases...straight aluminum alloy...really, I'm not making this up. This coating is called Nikasil. Extraordinarily hard and very thin on the surface of the cylinder. It's made of Nickel and silicon.

Your bike does not have this fancy material. It's pure old school. Old school recommendations for break-in apply. Anyone, please check my reco here.

  1. Vary your RPM regularly. Don't drive long distance at the same RPM the whole time, very it by a few grand, up and down the range.
  2. Be nice to it. Some say, ride it the way your will ride it. Uhmmm, nah, be nice. Take it up the rev range once it has a couple hundred miles on it, redline once in awhile but initially, there is more friction going on here. The hone cross hatches against the rings will create a little more heat, so be aware of that.
  3. Heat - be aware. Think. Sitting in traffic, rush hour traffic, not good to overheat your little teacup. Avoid it initially or turn off the motor if your in that traffic jam.
  4. Oil - Change it a lot. I read a Popular Mechanics article where the guy was changing his oil every 20 miles! I'm not that fanatical but I did have a bike where I did it every hundred, guess what....looked like very fine flaky metal within the old. As all the bearings, camshaft against lifter, gear on gear wear themselves together and create good mating surfaces the thing is going to have an accelerated wear rate.
  5. Your brake pads and discs need to mate together too. No high speed stopping or dragging on the brakes immediately.

I'm not saying don't have fun, I'm just saying. Be aware, don't beat it up: vary the engine speed and change the oil a few times for the first 1000 miles.

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    what do you think of this approach - mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm . This seems to be a much talked about (if not controversial) approach.
    – chilljeet
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 10:19
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    Are special break-in oils used with motorcycles or is that just something for car engines?
    – Elias
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 15:01
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I think you won't go far wrong by following Ducati Killers' advice. I started motorcycling in the mid fifties when every new or rebuild had to be "run in".
The best advice I can offer is don't red line it untill you have at least 1,500 miles.
Change the oil and filter every 500 miles for the first 1,500.
Don't let the engine "labour" keep it spinning, no hard acceleration. I personally would use synthetic (I use Ams Oil).

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    You've got to be careful about the types of oils used. Fully Synthetic oil is known to damage ducatis wet clutches.
    – Mauro
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 10:48

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