On Wed, 10 Jan 96 20:54:07 MST, you wrote:
> Has anyone set up an engine dyno in their home shop.
I've set a bunch of dynos up. I can't imagine the "home shop" idea
being practical for car engines, although I know a chap who has one
for go kart engines.
Dynos are (almost always) electrical or water. Electrical would be
possible, provided you had a nice strong concrete floor to bolt it
down to, and three phase electrics. Water dynos are simpler and
cheaper, but they need a huge tank of water nearby - all that engine
energy turns into heat, and you have to dump it somewhere to stop the
dyno boiling.
I can't imagine installing a rolling road dyno at home, so I presume
you mean an engine dyno.
A dyno also needs to be installed in a "test cell", not just the end
of the bench. You're talking about soundproofed walls, double glazed
viewing windows, instrumentation connections, control connections, a
fireproof fuel supply, ventilation fans, cooling air for the engine
radiator and a range of engine test stands. It's far from being a big
bench and a couple of G clamps.
Your neighbours will hate the noise. Engine noise is one problem, so
is exhaust noise.
Easy access to a dyno isn't much use unless you also have the
necessary tools at hand to work on the engine. There's no point if you
can test at home if you still need to truck heads into town for
machining. If you really want to build domestic tuning test gear, I'd
start with a flow bench.
There's a long thread on dynos over in rec.autos.tech &
rec.autos.sport.tech at the moment. I'll make no further comment...
8-)
--
Andy Dingley dingbat@codesmth.demon.co.uk
The Internet has given us all mountains of information at our fingertips.
...and all most people want to do is pick their noses with them.
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