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Car & Driver Long Term Shelby GT350

Spacebird

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I broke mine in "gently" with all the aspects of accel and decell and no problems yet - but of course I only have 2200 miles as of now. Seems C&D oil usage spiked after 20k miles.
There's no evidence that babying the car when new will reduce oil consumption. In fact, there are hypotheses that pass the engineering sniff test that say pushing the car hard and having the engine either under load or vacuum at all times is the way to break it in. Given load and vacuum is what pushes the rings to the cylinder walls, I tend to think this makes sense.

My anecdote:

For my first 1000 miles I made sure the car was either accelerating or decelerating as much as I could; highway driving was between 50 and 80 and back in gear, constantly. I did my first track day at ~1100 miles and my second at ~2200.

In my last 2000 miles I've done 100+ minutes at COTA and the balance just tooling around. I'm about a quart low which I think is pretty darn good given these engines are meant to consume some oil.
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extrachrispy

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Re: change intervals

There was a thread on BobIsTheOilGuy regarding oil analysis, wear metals, and change intervals. One of the non-intuitive findings was that, to a point, extending the wear interval resulted in *reduced* wear metals over time (particularly iron, IIRC).
 

rick81721

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My experience so far: first 2200 miles, hardly any oil consumption. Changed oil. Now at 4700 miles, just got back from 400 miles of highway driving and down 1/2 qt
 

johnny1

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Could it be that it was at that level after the oil change or was it at the top hole after (full mark) Reason I ask is i just got my first oil and filter changed last week after a year at 2750 miles (my 17 has spin on oil filter) They put 10 quarts in and mine is half way between the holes which would show half quart low. Obviously for my engine that is full then.
 

Nfs1000f

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Could it be that it was at that level after the oil change or was it at the top hole after (full mark) Reason I ask is i just got my first oil and filter changed last week after a year at 2750 miles (my 17 has spin on oil filter) They put 10 quarts in and mine is half way between the holes which would show half quart low. Obviously for my engine that is full then.
Same for me.
 

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rick81721

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Could it be that it was at that level after the oil change or was it at the top hole after (full mark) Reason I ask is i just got my first oil and filter changed last week after a year at 2750 miles (my 17 has spin on oil filter) They put 10 quarts in and mine is half way between the holes which would show half quart low. Obviously for my engine that is full then.
Mine was about halfway between holes after oil change. 2500 miles later, the lever just dropped below the bottom hole. Added 1/2 qt and back to halfway between
 

Don's Stang

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I have a case of Amsoil signature series 5W-50 from my last mustang, I plan to use that after I hit 1000 miles. I have read the motorcraft 5W-50 starts loosing its viscosity after only 1000 where the Amsoil or other better oils don't break down as quick

Maybe this is part of the issue
 
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17RubyShelbyGT350

17RubyShelbyGT350

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There's no evidence that babying the car when new will reduce oil consumption. In fact, there are hypotheses that pass the engineering sniff test that say pushing the car hard and having the engine either under load or vacuum at all times is the way to break it in. Given load and vacuum is what pushes the rings to the cylinder walls, I tend to think this makes sense.

My anecdote:

For my first 1000 miles I made sure the car was either accelerating or decelerating as much as I could; highway driving was between 50 and 80 and back in gear, constantly. I did my first track day at ~1100 miles and my second at ~2200.

In my last 2000 miles I've done 100+ minutes at COTA and the balance just tooling around. I'm about a quart low which I think is pretty darn good given these engines are meant to consume some oil.
Actually, there is no evidence either way, that I have seen. But after doing this with all my cars, including the 9 toys before this one, I have NEVER had an oil consumption problem-even the cars I tracked had small additional over normal oil consumption.

So, I stick with what works for me - which btw is not "babying" - just following break-in procedures for the first 1000 miles. And that includes steadily increasing the RPM and accels/decels as I indicated in my earlier post.

YRMV - but for me, if it ain't broke, I am not gonna fix it.
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