darrenjlobb's Rolling Road Chassis Dyno Project

[darrenjlobb]

Good progress as ever mate.

Surely it would be easy enough to just wang the rollers in the lathe and knurl them.

No, because there huge, I dont have a lathe, and you would need a lathe with a mill, its cross grooves you need, not around with the roller! Sadly I dont "know anyone" with the gear..

Loving the fencing nails

You love it Rhys

[darrenjlobb]

Done a small amount of work on this this week, Made a visit to local hydro place for a selection of fittings, wanted to convert all the old load / unloader lines to modern 10mm push fit for ease, so bought a load of adapters, and bends etc to make that work, Have just screwed the adaptors into the brake for now, and will plumb up fully once its more together, but got the number 1 brake back in the chassis and bolted up to frame / roller, and plumbed in the heat exchanger / thermo valve for it, and also mounted the clayton load cell, This will likely be replaced with a modern load cell for computer data acquisition in the long run, but for testing the retro dials will be used!

Brake 1 in frame:



And some pipework in:



Hoping to get the new stator in next few days so can assemble the second brake and get that in the frame also!

[nominous]

Random question from watching your videos: Are you still rocking the oil boiler? Changed the bearings yet?
Straight waste engine oil into it via the filter, no preheat? Just turned up the pressure on teh oil pump and let it take it's time lighting?
Saw the coaling too. Any issues with having to decoke and cleaning it every so often ?

[darrenjlobb]

Random question from watching your videos: Are you still rocking the oil boiler? Changed the bearings yet?
Straight waste engine oil into it via the filter, no preheat? Just turned up the pressure on teh oil pump and let it take it's time lighting?
Saw the coaling too. Any issues with having to decoke and cleaning it every so often ?

Lol random off topic...

Its not straight oil, it runs via 3 series filters outside, and a water trap... Have replaced the pump a couple times, but I might add, every pump we have had has been free, as in, "removed BECAUSE its fookd" so tbh, one good pump would still be going strong... Turn airflow on fan to max, and up pressure until its clean, normally gives plenty of pressure to start, only when its really cold, sometimes just have to crank the pressure up 1 turn just as it first ignites, then down again / is fine all day...

[nominous]

Yeah, sorry OT. Just on list of things to play with. Of course the internet says you can't do it this way reliably for long, but with free / low cost bits meh
Oil boilers up this way go on ebay for peanuts, hence...
Just found it curious as was going to try this way before converting to venturi feed oil to the burner. But I'm after fire and forget too.

[darrenjlobb]

Another update to this, Finally managed to get hold of my new stator, new old stock unit, was very lucky to get hold of this, so that means we have two brakes with as new load capacity now.

The new stator: (On Ruans Lap!!)



Starting to rebuild the brake:





And back in the frame on the second set:




Although I aim to comperize this dyno, we wanted some form of readout for the time being, so we decided to hook up the clayton load cells and readout, the load cells were reading open circuit, so stripped them down and cleaned / repaired them (springs issue) and rebuilt them:



Mounted some screens for future data logging / graphing once the dyno is prooven:



Started plumbing up the cooling system:



And cut / painted up some covers for the front gap etc, will make more for sides etc...




And the next video (bit behind the images):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyv7s4G_...e=youtu.be

[Dum-Dum]

great progress mate

[Piggy]

Nice one fella.

Hope to see the cummins and bx on it asap!

[Dum-Dum]

Nice one fella.

Hope to see the cummins and bx on it asap!

Pretty confident the 4wd cummins land rover wont work on the 2wd rolling road mate.

[darrenjlobb]

Heh yeah the cummins would be an issue. We could drop front prop and put in diff lock, but not really worth it just to find out how much power its making which isnt a huge amount of stock for the time being...

[Tom]

Just what Lobbland has always needed

[Piggy]

Thats exactly what I was assumimg you would do, lash it up for 2wd. I assumed you be all over dynoing the cummins!
So you got it working then? What was first victim?

[darrenjlobb]

Have had the daily / Ruans volvo / James ZX 16v and VNT BX on it so far just to test it out....

[bashbarnard]

And? All good. The anticipatioin is killing me!!

Im serious.

[darrenjlobb]

Another update, and yes, a video of acaully using it!

After trying out a few car initially, just to get a feel for it / test the brakes etc, it was quickly decided that the exhaust extraction was required ASAP before further use, we also fitted a carbon monoxide meter / alarm just to be on the safe side..

First things first, bored a hole through the wall:






Elaborate hole template mounted:



Spot of wiring:





All mounted up (duct is just bodged on to test):



And test victim sat in the rollers...although previous to this several cough, petrols have been used to test things out...



Overall things are working well / as planned.

A few modifications that I want to make is a load balance pipe between stators, so that no matter what, the load is 50/50 between sides, and also a pair of one way valve on the 10mm side load feed port to prevent it from back feeding into the center of the rotor under high load circumstances...

We also need to make / mount a rear tie down bar, to allow us to strap the rear of the cars as a failsafe, and finish making plates to cover the unit in...

A video showing the extractor, and also, the first few runs...Just playing with it really, getting readouts on the analog display, but sadly not caught in any of the films as its in front of the car on the roof so the operator can see!

http://youtu.be/t_nOLW9Jrjw

Thanks for reading.

[Nathan1305]

This is awesome! We need a meet at yours for a rolling road day  

[Dum-Dum]

Good news buddy.

[Dave]

Absolutely epic darren, very jealous you have your own proper tuning garage now. How many people who would want that in their own!!

---

Defo need some footage of the epic winrar vintage readout too!!

[bashbarnard]

That's awesome. Good to see its up and running. Well done man. I'm impressed

[Mattcheese31]

Top job Lobby me ald mucker, no sitting on yer hands I see

[londondan86]

Wahoo!!! Well done chap! Looks like the extractor is doing the business too!

[darrenjlobb]

Bit more work on this in the evenings recently,

Have began the next phase of digitizing the dyno, so that we can do proper power runs / steady state with life computer logging / graphing etc,

First step is to replace the old Clayton VARI-resistors / load cells with some modern digital ones, after doing a evening of calculations, figured out what size I would need:



Bought some M12 rose joints to support it:




Decided to re engineer the "Torque Bridge" so that it sits flush and below the top of the dyno to help with clearances, and so that I can make a flat cover to go on top rather than a lifted one (not ideal with super low cars!)

So made up a new bridge and rose joint mount:



And in position with modifications to the torque arm also:



The more observant of you will notice a change in the load / unload pipework (yes its still a mess, this will get tidied / mounted properly at some point soon!)...I have added one way valves to the stator's outer housing pipes, so that under HIGH rpm full load, it can still add load via the vane (stator pressure rises above pump pressure)...I have also added a stator pressure gauge on the wall so I can monitor the load.
I have also added a "balance" pipe between stators, 10mm pushfit, which keeps the load left to right always the same, so if one brake fills / drains slightly faster or slower, the load is always equalized to keep the power balance as close to 50/50 side to side as we can!

Had to weld some extensions on the arms to keep the load cells in the same position (wanted to keep the same length from shaft to cell as stock so that the calculations were still correct and torque lower)



Mounted the load cell summer on the wall (bought to combine load cell outputs, with trim pots to enable me to calibrate one cell, and then apply the same calibration weight to the other cell and "trim" the output to match the first for 100% accuracy)



Started wiring up the control box, ongoing project, but got the power supplys in, amplifier, and USB I/O for the computer.





And wired up the cells:



The software I am going to be using comes straight out of Victoria, Australia, called "Dynertia". It is designed for both Interia and brake dynos, (and combination of both if you want to pull more than the brakes can hold)

Will enable us to do alot more with the Dyno, gives us 5 input channels of data from just about any sensor we want, so can log / graph boost / AFR / EGT / temp etcetc along side the power graphs. Supports multi-monitor (hence two) to allow live data on a second screen etc, Fairly small concern ran by a guy called Darren (ironically) and really nice chap to talk to / discuss. So will see how it goes, but so far very impressed with the level of options / capacity of the software for what it costs.

Next is to get the roller speed sensor mounted / hooked up, and mount a PC, and begin some initial testing / calibration.

The hardware also has some aux outs, so will enabled me to switch between some presets on the VFD's for extraction etc, so can set it up to run extractor at 1/3 speed when rollers are still, then ramp up as it detects movement, to cut down noise between runs, or anything else you want the computer to run really.

Thanks for reading

[Piggy]

You are a freaking genius.

Didnt understand much of that, but all so awesome as usual.
I bow to your greatness

[7057sam]

You are a freaking genius.

Didnt understand much of that, but all so awesome as usual.
I bow to your greatness

THIS 

Amazing thread and results

[pioneer DJ paddy]

Fair play Darren excellent work head is spinning looking at all those wires Dow lol  :-)

[Dum-Dum]

f*cking hell thats alot of wires.

[306carter]

Looking good.

Did you get the 12v PSU for your control box from eBay? I have bad experience with ones that look identical to that.

[darrenjlobb]

Haha the little one on the bottom yes, thats just for solenoids, all the expensive computer / load cell stuff is powered from the quality RS one in the top left.

Let me guess, you wired it up, turned it on and boom? If so i know what happened

[silverzx]

I admire your patience Darren, I really could not be arsed to even attempt something like this.

Massive ball - ache.

[darrenjlobb]

I admire your patience Darren, I really could not be arsed to even attempt something like this.

Massive ball - ache.

Heh, Its just about splitting a big job up into lots of little segments. And sticking with it, rather than giving up / moving on...same goes for cars really, selling / buying all the time isnt up my street at all, never get anywhere.

I've always wanted my own Dyno, I cant count the number of times we have been tuning a car / my car, and just wished we had access to a dyno to aid the job, So i decided I would try and get one, and since then (2-3 years ago) ive been collecting parts, and slowly rebuilding things, and then obviously i finally scored the old Clayton Unit, which got things moving.

For example the next project is "mounting the speed sensor and wiring it up" then "mounting the computer", will just try and do one thing at a time, then eventually you end up with a complete setup ready to go (i hope!)