Breaking in new gears.

[LS1 Eddie]

I plan on getting some 3:73 gears when my car goes back on the insurance. After they are installed, what should be done in terms of breaking the new ones in? I heard that you should take it easy for 500 miles. This meaning, no hard WOT runs, racing, or extended highway. Is this true?

[hammertime]

For beast results, you probably want to make a few short trips, 15-25 miles to heat the gears, then let them cool as long as possible. After that, you should be able to make trips of any distance, but avoid hard acceleration, especially from a stop or with any load til you get to 500 miles. That should pretty well do it.

Good Luck!

[keliente]

When you buy the gears, check the instructions, it should tell you there...the manufacturer instructions may vary. In general though it is recommended 500 easy miles.

When I installed my 4.10's though, I drove it straight to the track and was leaving at 4,500 rpms 1 hour after the install ;)

[mrr23]

the nice thing to do is do about 100 miles of city type driving. lots of stop and go. this will heat cycle the gears. after that, i stopped caring about the break in. i just got through doing some extensive wear testing of 4 sets of 3.73 gears for vinci high performance. had to get them finished before PRI at the beginning of december. on one set of gears, i did a 100 mile around town break in that took about 2.5 hours. the next night i did a 250 mile long drive. speeds averaging 90 mph.