Alright I'm finishing up my new motor build so this is what I'm going to do for my break in. Old setup was dyno tuned and the new motor is just higher compression. I have a wide band and my tuner said it'd be fine for start up and a few miles.

Fill motor with 4qts SAE30 non detergent oil from the dollar store along with new fram filter.
Fill tranny with 2qts Penzoil syncro mesh
Fill radiator with distilled water only
Leave distributor unplugged and crank motor for 2-3 30 second intervals
Plug distributor in and have a friend start the car and hold the idle at 2,000rpm
Check for leaks and weird noises while car gets to full operating temp.
Shut car off and drain the oil and filter plus drain the radiator.
Unbolt my blow off valve.
Install new Purolator Pure 1 filter and fill with 4qts mobil 1 clean 5000. Fill radiator with 50/50 mix.
Drive the car home to my house about 10 minutes away down a mountain and threw town. Park it for the night and change the oil and filter again the next day. Bolt blow off valve back up. Put it on the trailer and take it to the dyno whenever I get a chance.

Proceed to beat the **** out of it and smile...

 

Sounds like a very safe and good way to me I'd just crank it over untill the the oil light goes off though. Make sure the spark plugs are out so you won't kill the battery off (specially been its a high comp setup).

Also you'll be fine to drive the car as far and for as long as you want provinding that the engine load is kept as low as possible (and the afr's are ok). I've drove a fresh 12.5:1 high comp setup over 50 miles on a stock ecu before. It may still be a good idea to retard the igntion timing by the distributor a bit though...

 

when you first start the motor vary the rpms between idle and 4k dont hold the rpms steady its not good to do that, and when you drive vary the rpms as well, make sure you do vacume pulls downhill i usually do 3rd gar around 4k-5k

heres how i do it, fill motor with fuilds 30w non detergent oil and start it vary the rpms until the motor completely warms up and keep doing it usually 30 miutes total. then i shut the car off let it cool down completely and change the oil start it up vary the idle till it warms up then drive it, i dont really rev past 3k for the first 30 minutes unless im doing vacume pulls downhill

then after about 50 miles i change the oil again then again at 250 miles then again at 1k then normal 3k changes but i dont normally beat on it until around 800-1000 miles but every 100 miles i bring the rpms up another 1000 rpms during the normal driving ...

i know there is different ways of doing it but i dont really beat on motors right away

 

It's not real high cp. 9:8:1 Yeah everything should be perfectly fine.

 

You'll be fine I wouldn't even touch the distributor.

 

well worthwhile fitting magnets to the oil system somewhere so that you catch any large pieces of swarf before they do any real harm. I'd go for one on the drain plug and one on the filter housing. This will tell you; a) if you were really as clean as you thought when you built the motor, and b) if anything nasty is happening. Also c) it will catch any small iron/steel particles (i.e. <5um or so, of which there will be plenty) which will otherwise go through the filter (= bad..).

BTW there are two main sources of worry with a new motor; 1) tight bearings and 2) breaking the rings into the bores. The former is down to your build and the latter can really affect the hp that you get, the oil consumption etc etc. Basically the rings have a plated coating on them and this wears into freshly honed bores in the first 500 miles or so. If you treat the engine too gently the rings will never bed in and the motor will make less power and it will use oil too. A few shortish bursts of 1/2-3/4 throttle in the first hundred miles or so followed each time by a closed throttle overrun (to help pull oil up onto the top ring) are the kind of thing you should be looking to do. After 500 miles or so the honing has lost its edge and it doesn't matter what you do from then, if the rings are not sealed they never will be.

cheers

 

I have a magnetic drain plug already. I'm sticking with my method and that's it. 1,000's of people break their motors in on the dyno with no trouble. I have a giant mountain to cost down on the way home so that will be where I'll do a few short bursts and let the engine break itself. Then off to make power....