rolling road dyno, where to buy..

[joospeed]

Trying my hardest to find a decent cost effective portable rolling road dyno, there's a couple of good ones from the states, but no UK distributors .. boo!

What I'm looking for is:

hub mount or preferably above-ground drive-on roller style.
fully portable around a small workshop
good back-up, reliability and results repeatable
good pricing, or ability to be haggled down!
must be uk based.


any ideas folks?

[eliot]

Have you looked at the Dynapack

www.abbeymotorsport.co.uk/Content/dynapack.htm

[futie]

Perhaps these guys have a UK distributor: Dyno Dynamics.

Surrey Rolling Road are just down the road from me and apparently have one installed. I could pop down there sometime and ask a few questions/take a few pictures if you like.

[Boosted LS1]

I looked into this and found quite a lot of information from doing a Google search. Didn't find me the money I needed to make the purchase though

Boosted.

[Fatboy]

futie said:

Surrey Rolling Road are just down the road from me and apparently have one installed. I could pop down there sometime and ask a few questions/take a few pictures if you like.

That'll be PHer Vixpy1 - you may want to pop down there and ask him if he's got any wing'd horses for sale

[gary_tholl]

Now this is interesting, as I've been looking into getting one as well, but being quite put off by the prices. Now, being me , I'm confident I could build one.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how they are used in the real world. What functionality do you need it to have? What would be nice options? I'm just trying to get a handle on what I may be getting myself into.

The theory behind them is quite simple, but that's far from having a working product!

From my research, an eddy current brake is the way to go. Large (18" min), single drum, as light as possible. A raft of sensors - drum rpm, load cell for torque, environmental readings for compensation, airflow, oil/water temp, EGT, exhaust gas analyzer, inductive spark pick-up, anything else.

A pc with a bunch of analog and digital input/output cards and a pile of code.

So, I'd be interested to hear what a guy who would use it would like to see.

I don't think I'll have one ready for you in a month though Joospeed! LOL

Gary

[eliot]

There is a yahoo group for DIY dyno, but there wasn't much happening on it when i was on it for a couple of months, not sure about now though.

Eliot.

here it is
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/diychassisdyno/


>> Edited by eliot on Friday 10th December 09:48

[stevieturbo]

The dynapack me be an excelent item, but isnt exactly a budget item.

I priced one a while back, and to get a full useable 4wd setup to handle good power, would have cost approx £100k. The exchange rate wasnt just as good back then though, with prices at around US$150k

The higher power units would have been needed in order to get a useable 2wd pair of units. ie rated at 300bhp each, to give 600bhp per axle. Anything less would have been rather pointless.

Dastek up in Scotland offer a good built in RR, which looks quite similar to the Dyno Dynamics. I think their prices were around the £45k mark for a 4wd, cant recall what the HP rating was, but I think it was quite good.

Dyno Dynamics are good too, but no idea of cost.

A guy on another forum I use, was interested in this hub dyno, but he never went ahead with it. Similar idea to the Dynapack, although I think he rated it as a better package in both performance and extras.
www.rototest.com/index.php?DN=2

Then of course theres the Dynojet single roller, which many of the US guys use. Again, I priced this a few years ago, and I think a 2wd setup was around £40k, with 4wd about £70k. This may ahve changed again with exchange rates.

No matter which one, its a lot of money to spend.....

[joospeed]

the rototest looks intriguing ..
trouble with dyno stuff is it never seems to come secondhand .. unless you count the 200hp one on ebay at the mo, lol... good for minis not much else

[Boosted LS1]

Second hand stuff is found in exchange and mart or at liquidation auctions but how to keep posted, I don't know.

boosted.

[joospeed]

Mike .. how much development time could reasonably be booked out on a dyno for thrid party operators such as yourself do you think?

[GreenV8S]

I guess you've ruled out the cheap and cheerful approach of doing acceleration runs with accelerometers and GPS and so on? I think it is a good starting point if you're mainly after comparisions rather than absolute figues, but perhaps not repeatable enough for you?

[stevieturbo]

But dont forget on-road testing does carry its risks, especially if the car is making any power.

[joospeed]

Yeah with teh cerberas at teh moment they're spinning their wheels on the power in third gear ,, so accel runs would have to be in 4th, and they peak at around 155/160mph .. so not ideal for me .

I need a dyno to map with .. there's really no other way of doing it.

[stevieturbo]

They can also reduce time needed to map, although final mapping should always be done on road or track, as the RR can still never quite simulate on-road conditions.

Ive always done my own mapping on-road, simply as there is nothing available over here. Apart from the difficulties, Ive managed ok.
Next engine should prove interesting though

[GreenV8S]

I'm sure you're right, but from the sound of it you have a hundred thousand reasons or so not to give up easily! Any chance of finding some Shellgrip (or whatever) grippy road surface near you, ballast in the boot, mega sticky warmed up tyres on the back, anything to get the power down in a lower gear?

[Boosted LS1]

joospeed said:

Mike .. how much development time could reasonably be booked out on a dyno for thrid party operators such as yourself do you think?

Tricky to answer. I'd like a dyno cell where I could get a couple of days every 6 weeks for engine work. More money can be made with a rolling road/hub dyno as anybody can be fitted on. Engine dyno's are big money and risky imho but the hub or chassis type start earning money straight away

Boosted.

[stevieturbo]

But you also need tools to offer services on the rolling road.
ie be able to offer products which allow re-mapping etc

Doing power runs alone would not be profitable enough.

[joospeed]

Boosted LS1 said:

joospeed said: Mike .. how much development time could reasonably be booked out on a dyno for thrid party operators such as yourself do you think? Tricky to answer. I'd like a dyno cell where I could get a couple of days every 6 weeks for engine work. More money can be made with a rolling road/hub dyno as anybody can be fitted on. Engine dyno's are big money and risky imho but the hub or chassis type start earning money straight away Boosted.

Mike .. had some news today which might turn out to be exactly what I'm after .. will give you a call on monday probably to put a proposition to you .. best wishes, joo

[Boosted LS1]

joospeed said:

Boosted LS1 said: joospeed said: Mike .. how much development time could reasonably be booked out on a dyno for thrid party operators such as yourself do you think? Tricky to answer. I'd like a dyno cell where I could get a couple of days every 6 weeks for engine work. More money can be made with a rolling road/hub dyno as anybody can be fitted on. Engine dyno's are big money and risky imho but the hub or chassis type start earning money straight away Boosted. Mike .. had some news today which might turn out to be exactly what I'm after .. will give you a call on monday probably to put a proposition to you .. best wishes, joo

Hi julian,

Well we are due to talk. I collected an engine today for your customer and you wish to talk transmisions

Cheers, Mike.