damage from a dyno?
 

So a guy I was talking to last week told me that he has heard stories about cars engines blowing up because they were running them on a dyno, something about the load on the engine is different from normal driving, has anyone heard of that?

I imagine it's possible to abuse a vehicle on a dyno just as easily as it is to do so on the road.

The one thing I see missing on a dyno is the effect of air cooling due to vehicle motion. I would guess you could overheat a vehicle fairly easily.

- Jack

I do know about the heat issue because we actually have two fans that blow into the vehicle's grill when it's being run on our dyno; I know Little Power Shop does something similar with a huge commercial fan. As far as the load, I'd have to check with Billy, and he's upstairs doing an ECM rollback with a customer -- at 8:41PM on a Friday night, no less... :thumbs up yellow:

Well I hope he gets to bed before midnight... it is friday!

I've not seen anything to indicate that running on a dyno is any more dangerous than running on the street, provided that precautions are taken to provide adequate airflow for cooling. The one thing I will say is that people will sometimes tend to push a vehicle harder on a dyno than they will on the street and that may be the cause of some engine failures. However, in 15 years I've never personally witnessed an engine failure on a dyno.

Starting your engine on fire during a dyno run is a hoot.

Good thing Bill has a calm head on his shoulders or my 2000 would look like a marshmallow that was held over a campfire too long.

Little update..
Still running the same high pressure oil hoses. Where is the "living dangerously" smilie?

I'm not running injection pressure above 2400 PSI anymore either though and I really don't have any spikes when the IPR has to open up quickly since making low 3-hundos for powah with 250/200% isn't pushing it past 25%.

THAT was a fun day. :eek:

Fortunately, only minor damage. Basically cosmetic on the harness wrapping.

Going to be interesting when we get the new engine dyno installed!

:2thumbs:

Need a co-host for an Engine Masters spin-off?

Sure! Whenever you're ready to move down this way. Actually going to be looking for an engine builder soon. Once things get situated with the dyno, we're going to construct a "clean room" to build engines.

I doubt we'll get any interest in a series out of it, but we can do our own podcasts. :D