In article ,
(Bob Martin) wrote:

A friend of mine just got a new Continental engine for his Cessna
(182RG I think, but don't those have struts? This one doesn't, but it
isn't a Cardinal... I don't know my Cessnas too well... anyways). He
says the factory had it sent with some expensive brand of 5W-30 (or
was 5W-15? something like that) as opposed to mineral oil. Now, I've
always heard that the first 50 hours should be run on mineral oil (and
the engine manual even says so), but he called the factory and said
that they just changed over to this other kind now; apparently they
haven't even updated the manuals yet. Anyone else heard about this?


50 hours is usually way too long for mineral oil.

The standard practice is to run mineral oil until the rings seat --
usually less than 10 hr on steel cylinders. You know when the rigs are
seated, as oil consumption drops measurably; if you have a graphic head
temperature setup, you will see a sudden drop in head temperature.

Chrome cylinders are more problematic. They may require a very short
initial run to make sure there are no oil leaks, then tow the plane to
the runup area, do the runup and take off and leave it at METO power
(75-80%). The same criteria apply.

Breakin requires low altitude, high power (25"/2500) for breakin.