i just got my 2011 Evo GSR two weeks ago and im getting close to 800mile mark. im trying to take it easy on the car and let it break in slowly but it is so so so difficult not to just wanna slam on the gas everytime i get an open highway lol. but my question is until how many miles should i wait before before considering the motor to be broken in? and how long until i start adding some modds? i plan to buy an access port before anything else, then exhaust, intake, bov from there. what do you recommend? please give me your insight!
thankyou, sean

 

Personally I kept my car under 4000rpms for the first 1000 miles then drove around with a HKS panel air filter until I hit 6000 miles. After I hit the 6k mark I started modifying the car. I went the same route you described above, Cobb AP, Exhaust (Buschur Cat back), Cobb Intake and stopped there for now. There's a bunch of threads out there discussing these topics, so give them a look and go with whatever your most comfortable with as far as a time frame to start modding the car.

 

Make sure you talk to your dealer.... even tho intake and exhaust will not void a warrenty.... they can sometimes give you grief about fixing stuuf that goes wrong, they know that most EVOs have tunes and are modified but they have to prove that the mods done to the vehicle are a direct or supporting cause for the problem. Some dealers are MOD friendly and others are DICKS about stuff. dont wait till you need something fixed to findout they are not mod friendly.

 

Yeah, it really depends on the kind of relationship you want with your warranty and dealership. I only ran the Cobb stg1 AP map until 60k miles and have now added exhaust, intake, DV, IC pipes and open source tune. The car is now so much fun I kinda wish I hadn't waited so long. I probably could have kept my dealership happy with just the IC pipes and exhaust with an AP tune that I could put back to stock when it went in for service. You may want to get a feel for your service dept, and just take it to the level they are comfortable with (don't mention the AP, most dealerships get twitchy about any tuning).
As far as mechanically, I think you are pretty well broken in. Change the oil and start enjoying the car a little bit, after ~1000 miles I would think you can mod and drive however you like.

 

There are differing theories on how to properly break in a car. I strongly believe that you should drive the car in different ways, varying different RPM's, throttle pressures, etc. I do WOT to ~6800 rpm in 1st and 2nd gear occasionally, but not frequent.

The one car I babied (no WOT) until 1k miles ended up being a weak motor reflected by stock dyno charts. Ever other new car I've used my varying RPM/throttle theory and I've had great success. I've also heard that technically, after three hot/cold cycles your motor is technically broken in.

So back to the point here... I'm going to be modding immediately after the 1k mile mark. Intelligently, of course.

 

Modded mine the day I drove it off the dealer lot

 

I started modifing my 2011 right after I picked it up. The way I say it is if I'm spending $800 on exhaust I might as well put it to use, if I drive the car for 6 months or a year then put the exhaust on it still costs my $800, but I got less use out of it. My car runs great no problems with anything. You can do some basic stuff without having warranty issues, exhaust, uicp, wheels/tires, clear bra or mudflaps....stuff like that. That will keep your wallet occupied for awhile while you get more miles.

 

Yea you should be good to mod. Is the AP available for the 2011's yet? Last I checked they weren't but that was a while back. I would def get an intake and exhaust first..

 

as soon as possible. i've had 2 X's with 2 different dealerships, (same mits rep tho), and they don't care. You do a ****ty job installing cams and blow your crap up, well, no warranty. You got a bunch of unrelated mods and something fails, they don't care. Hell, the mits rep himself looked at my car on the lift, commented on my suspension and exhaust setup (and i quote: "guy buys nice stuff") and waranteed my transfer case.

 

I just picked my evo up and ill be ordering a intake in a few weeks.

When i got my 370z i got the intakes 3 days after i got the car and went to the drag strip. I dont know why everyone says 'gotta stay under xxxx amount of rpms for xxxx miles/kms" Thats not how you break in the car....you break it in, the way its going to be driven...in my case im beating the hell out of it right off the bat to seed the piston rings and the get the cylinder walls broken in.

 

I started modding at 25,000 miles.

 

Yup.
http://blogs.cobbtuning.com/2011/07/...-data-logging/

 

Me personally wouldn't even waste the money on the AP, especially since you're in NJ. Go to Ivey and just start with a tune, that is really all the X needs to be honest. My tuner got 330whp out of their X bone stock, with just a MBC on their heartbreaker MD. Thats atleast a 360whp car on most dynojets. My car made 305whp conservatively on his MD and put down over 340whp on a local DJ.

Also ran 7.9@88mph in the 1/8th mile. No doubt thats a low 12 second pass @110+

 

Word. Tactrix 2.0 + a custom tune.

 

just keep it under 4k rpm and u are fine.