I was watching SpeedVision this morning and I saw a show where these professional engine builders who had assembled a complete 350 SBC engine (from the bottom end up) in about 30 minutes. Later on in the program, they show them testing the engine on a special engine stand (not like a tripod stand), and it's actually running up there, outside of the car of course.

Has anybody done anything like this before? Are there any good ways of doing it? I would think I could probably make a wooden frame and then get a K-member from a wrecker, bolt the K-member to the frame and then mount the engine on motor-mounts to the K-member. Of course, then I'd still have to worry about how to get coolant and fuel to the engine...

Just curious to know if this has been done before and if it's even worth trying. I know something like that could have saved my butt--I'm on my first rebuild, and I've done so much wrong that I might as well have pulled my engine twice before I finally get it right...

Thanks

 

Yes it is done all the time. It's called an engine dyno.

Obviously you need several thing to make it work; a load, a fuel supply, cooling, intake air, and exhaust sysem, some method of controlling engine speed, and some way of measuring the engine's output. The only engine dyno mfr I have any direct hands-on experience with for auto racing applications is Dyno-Flo, specifically the ones that Comp Cams has (they have 2 of them).

The stand is the easy part. It's all that other stuff that makes the stand useful, that takes some effort.

The load in a Dyno-Flois a "water brake". It works a little like a torque converter, such that the operator can vary the coupling between it and the engine. To measure engine output, it takes the pressure the engine can generate, and multiplies that by the amount of water that it can force to flow at that pressure. Some older dynos used to use an electric generator; but a 700 HP motor requires about a 500kW generator capable of continuous operation at that power level, which is not very practical.

I've seen automatic trans shops that use a motor similarly, where the motor is bolted down, and they have quick hookups for transmissions to make sure they work right before they put them in a car. One mass-production automatic transmission rebuilder that my one little brother worked for used to do that; it sure saved alot of grief at the shops they owned.