DYNO Tails

by **MadBill** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:15 pm

No real drama, but we had a near-miss today. Hydraulic cam 540 Hemi with Big Stuff EFI. We were gaining power with every run, and had just topped 700 HP and 650 lb-ft. running ~12.7:1 AFR at the top end. Leaned it out a tad for the next pull, and at peak torque (~5,200), the load came off the dyno due to a wiring glitch. The dyno limiter had been left at 7,000, a sure-killer speed due to valve clipping, but I had just set the EFI limiter down to 6,200, and it worked perfectly. Definitely dodged a bullet on this one!

by **Unkl Ian** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:32 pm

How about blowing an oil line,,spraying oil all over
the nearby fuse panel,which of course caught on fire.

by **needforspeed66gt** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:10 pm

Many distributor jolts..
Burned arms
backfires through the carb while looking at booster atomization burns hair off..
Had a lugnut fly off and bury it'self in a concrete wall
Nitrous explosion on a 1400hp diesel lifted the head and blew flames everywhere
Burst a 3200psi oil line on a powerstroke and sent an oil mist over every car in the shop
Dumb kid had CNC coolant(lube included) in his cooling system - hose came loose because of the lube and coated laptop...
Run-away diesel motor..

by **Masher Manufacturing** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:03 pm

[quote="MadBill"]the load came off the dyno due to a wiring glitch.[/quote]

This brings up something to consider, if city power went down, what would the motor do?

Should a dyno cell have back up electrical power? If so for what systems? Just the computer or a few systems that are needed to cool the motor after a run?

by **ClassKing** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 12:52 am

Water brake blew the drain plug straight out the back at 5500 rpm. Rather startling to say the least. Blasted water e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

Cleaned the wall nicely. Had that going for me. :shock:

by **putztastics** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:58 am

My dyno is in a shop next to our house, we have four kids and they have added an interesting flavor to dyno testing.

Customer built 520 big block Dodge; We were in the middle of testing this engine when the computer screen went blank. I tried everything, multiple re-boots, I mean everything (I thought) and after about 30 minutes concluded the video card went out. So the laptop came to the rescue, got it hooked up and running when my first son came out ans asked why I had the laptop out there. "Well it looks like the PC's video card went out." He walked over to the PC monitor and as he turned the brightenss back up said, "why didn't you think of doing this?"

2003 EngineMasters 470 Mopar entry preliminary testing; I had help for this one, the guy that developed the ports on the Stage 6 heads was there and a few other local motorheads. During a lull in the testing my first daughter came out to the shop. The guys were standing around while she was checking the engine out. The chrome dipstick apparently caught her eye - and imagination. She opened her mouth and right in front of the guys uttered these words," Dad you are just like this dipstick, it may be nice, but it is still a dipstick."

One more involving a "customer acceptance test" on a street 360 Dodge engine I built. The customer had come to see the his engine run. Everything was going very good until my second son came running in after the engine was started for another pull, "Dad! Dad! Is the engine supposed to be smoking out the exhaust??" Oh groan! The customer and I rushed outside and sure enough blue smoke was pouring out of the right side exhaust pipe. I stood there kind of numb, the customer looking at me, when I noticed a jug of used oil sitting close to the end of the exhaust pipe and I asked second son, "DID YOU DO SOMETHING?" He got a sheepish grin on his face as he answered, "yeah I put a smoke bomb up the exhaust pipe."

by **Doug Schriefer** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:27 pm

A couple of funny ones:

A 347 Ford on the pump chugging away at idle running like crap

One of the guys reaches over and kills the motor. No one realized they had forgotten to put the wires on one side of the engine :shock:

First pull on a 500" motor with a new DTS engine hit 8900 and shut off clean... Double check everything, try again.... Same thing??? Come to find out there was a glitch in the computer were it thought the brake was too hot so it just shut it off.

How many of us have done this? Problem with linkage getting the engine to stay at WOT, so get the engine running with multiple guys in the cell. Bring her to WOT, one guy looks down and checks, another throws the hood (all while she's at WOT) now let her go...

Wow, and we're all still alive....

by **Procision-Auto** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 6:37 pm

That was some entertaining reading. I don't have a dyno room story,
but I can share what might have been!

The following are pictures taken on the way home from the dyno session.
I had a couple hours of dyno time reserved and managed 12 pulls without
issue. Ironically, the last couple of pulls yielded the most power.

This engine blew during normal part throttle cruise at about 60 MPH @ 3500 RPM. It was pretty scary to see and control the car while steam
and oil are being thrown from the hood area.

**note to self: no need to ever throw the ignition off while driving:
1. The engine is already toast before you think of hitting the key

2. It's tough to steer when the steering column is locked :oops:

I figure one, or two more pulls and this engine would have snapped at
6000 RPM on the rollers!

Flexplate is hanging by a sliver of metal - literally.

Block cracked from crankcase to cam bearings

Not a bad engine. About 10 years old, drag raced and power shifted at
every chance. Tough little motor!

Second story (even more off topic), I was at an IHRA event when a rabbit
made its way onto the strip. Two pro-mods were racing at the time.
You would swear this rabbit had jet packs on each foot. It never cleared
the wall, but he got some good height trying!

by **PFM** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:38 pm

OK I will add in one of my early ones to keep this thing going.

A 180 something HP flat 4 Porsche road-race motor starting to come to life several pulls in to about 6000 RPM no problems. Oil pressure is good, motor sounds great time to go for 7000 RPM. All starts off great motor rolls through 6600 RPM and just shuts down with a scary sneeze through the Weber's. I thought it was dead, the dyno operator had no concern, I am freaking out, the carb ran out of fuel too small a needle and seat for the HP.

Thanks for all that added to this thread, I am sure there are LOTS more Dyno Tails out there.

PFM

by **andyf** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 12:06 am

I had an engine on the dyno doing cam swaps for a magazine article. When we fired it up after a tear down, she was running rougher than a cob. They dyno operator asked me how big of a cam I put in it and I told him it was the biggest one in the catalog but it still shouldn't be running this rough. We shut it off and looked around a bit and discovered that the carb hadn't been bolted back on. It was just sitting loose on the manifold!

by **tjs44** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:21 pm

just yesterday we had a 455 pontiac on the dyno for breakin.Afterward we made a couple power pulls.Someone said lets do a pumping comp test.The guy stuck it in and does a crank and it lit and blew the guage out of his hands and a 12in flame shot out of the hole.What would cause it?Ing was off,just unburned fuel going off in the hot chamber?Tom

by **devilbrad** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:40 pm

Good read! A little off topic, but it is work related and damage related. Had this one two weeks ago. As the customer said "I hit something metal in the road and oil started leaking." 2500ish miles on their new car. Yes, thats part of the oil pan in their rocker panel.

by **airflowdevelop** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:57 pm

has anyone had, or heard of a tie down strap failing on a chassis dyno?

Dennis

by **devilbrad** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:18 pm

airflowdevelop wrote:has anyone had, or heard of a tie down strap failing on a chassis dyno?

Dennis

I know a certain Dakota/Ram truck performance vendor that sent a customers Dakota through a wall.

by **airflowdevelop** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:42 pm

ohh...please tell more...

what straps..what hp?

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