No special break in oil needed for our engines.
The reason for an early oil change is to catch break in materials but mostly the grunge left by the guy who assembled the engine. How necessary a "flush" type early oil change is depends on how clean the assembler was and the way the rebuild/overhaul was done. If assembly was on the dirty side, a warmup... 20-30 minutes... followed by a drain might be prudent to flush out the junk. Ditto for an inframe overhaul where not everything was accessed for thorough cleaning or the engine was left open outside for a period. Especially true if there was some sort of a failure where metal was pushed thru the engine and it's not going to be fully disassembled and cleaned. In a normal rebuild where everything was properly cleaned, the oil filter can take care of things.
The oil filter is full flow and catches most everything. Certainly all the stuff big enough to cause immediate damage. A simple answer is to buy a really efficient filter for the first run to catch all the break in material. These are the high dollar filters like the Amsoils or the Fram Ultras (they do make one for the 7.3L Powerstoke, which will fit ours), the Napa Platinum, etc. These are all wire backed, synthetic media filters that have better efficiency (catches more and smaller particles) Just make sure that the filter doesn't bypass on the first start due to cold, thick oil. This is why I often use a light oil for break in... 10W30 HDEO in our case, and/or I fill the engine with hot water for the first start (or warm it up with the block heater) and/or even put the oil jugs in a bucket of hot water so the engine starts off with hot oil. Under those circumstances, the oil filter is unlikely to bypass on that first, critical start and ALL the potentially contaminant-laden oil will pass thru the filter. Some may be sneering at this and saying, "how ****." OK, but if you are also an advocate of dumping two or three fills of perfectly good oil "just because", you are just as **** ( : < ). At least the method I outlined doesn't cost any money!
Going back to the high efficiency oil filters... once the engine is broken in, the need for enhanced filtration is less necessary. Having such can extend the life of the oil significantly but once the rate of contamination from normal wear levels off, the level of contamination in the oil rises slowly and until it reaches a certain point (which is what oil change intervals are all about) increased wear due to oil contamination is very minor. Still, I have BOTH a high efficiency oil filter (Fram Ultra PSD filter) AND a 3 micron bypass because they allow me at least an 8000 mile OCI. In fact, I am still running on the oil I installed when the engine was overhauled. I've done three oil analysis since (including particle counts) and the oil is still extremely clean and contaminant. I did the first one at around a thousand miles and the oil was actually a little bit cleaner than the new oil (I have baseline oil cleanliness tests done on the new oil.. an eye opener if you thing new oil is perfectly free of contamination).
As to a break-in change, unless your rig has bypass filtration, the number will vary. For the most part, I think you can go a normal interval. That's if it was a "clean" overhaul. If there is doubt, go 3K and then normal after that. I have see a large number of oil analysis sheets, many on engines in the break-in stage, and the oil really isn't that horrible during this process. The oil itself doesn't wear out during break-in, it's just the contaminant load you want to get rid of. Again, the oil filter takes 95-98% of that stuff out and a high efficiency filter can do even better.
,ill tell you the most likely reason they wiped a cam lobe and lifters.
