breaking in my 4.6 DOHC?

I just had a remanufactored 4.6 DOHC put in my 99 Cobra and i'm wondering what the proper way is to break it in? I guess this is a debatable subject because a lot of ppl go two ways about it.. many think, you should be very gentle and go 3000 miles of no abuse or aggressiveness, yet others feel 500-1000 is enough, change the oil, and then your good... A friend of mine thinks that in order to give the piston rings a good seal i should slowly work up the throttle to 25% sometimes while keeping the RPMs below redline.. My plan was to go gentle, no redlining or hard accleration over 25%, change the oil after 500 miles with synthetic, and then start being harsh on it.... What do you guys think?

Basically what happened with my cars is this... i bought the car in the fall of this yr, i stored it through the winter, after i put maybe at most 3k of my own miles on her putting her at 50,000 miles.. Ever since i bought the car i noticed a slight tick.. never previously owning a Mustang, or ford for that matter, i thought perhaps the sound was just part of the engines normal attitude.. this is comming from owning a 2000 Z24 cavy with a noisy quad 4.. anyhow i take it to the track one day and couple times down the track the ticking becomes louder and i feel a lack of power.. I head home, unaware of the serious problems my engine is having.. on my way home the ticking turns into a very hard knocking very quickly, i pull over and turn it off... 5100 warrantted bucks later i have a brand new remanufactored 4.6.. Your gonna like this.. two months after i bought my stang a kid comes up to me and says this.. " hey did you buy your car from adrenalin up on ridge road?" i reply yes.. He then says " does it tick or knock?" at the time i didn't really notice anything.. basically what i've put together is that the owner before me traded this car in knowing he had done serious internal damage to it.. the dealership became aware of this and added some shitty thick oil to hide the sound and sold me a car ready to shit the bed... After fighting with my warranty company for two weeks they decided to fix the motor only under the terms that i would cancel my contract with them after wards.. the motor itself comes with a 36000 mile warranty from the factory so i figured that would be ok, considering i had no money to get a lawyer and sue them for basically fraud... anyhow its fixed and i want to make it last..

Heres what I do. 10 minutes of idling with any cheap old oil and a fram filter, change oil to a good non detergent, non synthetic oil, and run it hard. I like to use Valvoline VR1 oil and Wix filters. After I let it idle for a while if I have access to a mustang dyno i'll use that but if not the road works ok. Get it up to highway speed in 4th gear or whatever your 1:1 is, and make a steady 3/4 throttle pull up to 4500-5000 RPM's. Let off the throttle, don't hit the brakes or put the clutch in, let the motor decellerate on it's own. I've basically followed this (http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm) guide for the past 4 or 5 motors i've built, and the motors I have built have had less blowby, higher compression, and have performed better than breaking them in easy.

A well built motor is ready for punishment after a short breakin, 500 miles at most.

thanks for the advise guys.. right now i still have the oil that came with the engine in it and i've put 200 miles on it... i'm planning on changing the oil after 500 miles... i'm thinking of synthetic, is that a no no? what would be the pluses and minuses to going with synthetic? pretty much what i have been doing is giving it like 50% throttle at times, but no sudden punches jusyt gradual throttle... it was tough tonight cause we went down to the beach and there was probably 1000 ppl there.. couple ppl wanted me to beet on it but i'm trying to practice some self control.. i have another slight problem i want to take care of before i start punishing her... I have a small leak from my rear end which i have figured to be just a old gasket i need to replace.. it cost like 6 bucks so i'm gonna change it in the next couple of days... I'll do whatever it takes to break her in right and have a trouble free life... i'd drive 10k miles before beating on her if i heard it were best lol

I'd give it at least 1500 miles before switching to synthetic oil.

yea, i'll just do that.. thanks man

where is this "adrenalin" store? i say we smash some windows, or steal some things from it.
i have a new engine in mine at 80k put in sometime in 2002. it is a 2001 engine, we are both lucky guys.

it's here in rochester.. yea it is shady that i was sold a car that was ready to die.. they sell sweet cars there though.. they have a saleen, 2 vipers, a lot of porshes and a bunch of blingers... i guess it just comes with the territory when you buy a sports car.. everyone that touches it just wants to beat the life out of it and park it.. never take care of it.. i bet at least 10 ppl beet the crap out of my car while it was trying to be sold.. freaking little lot boys and gay ass salesmen..

Ya it happens! But you are bringing it back to life!

Curious
"99 SVT COBRA
4:10 rear end
eibach springs
BBK underdrive pullies
Flowmaster cat back(american thunder)
dyno'd 279 RWHP stock
1/4: 13.4 @ 104mph with 2.1 60"

i thought stock 99 Cobra were at 320 horse?

Curious
"99 SVT COBRA
4:10 rear end
eibach springs
BBK underdrive pullies
Flowmaster cat back(american thunder)
dyno'd 279 RWHP stock
1/4: 13.4 @ 104mph with 2.1 60"

i thought stock 99 Cobra were at 320 horse?

Heard of drivetrain losses?