Purchasing a Quality Dynometer

Andre,

I have done a large amount of research pertaining to the purchase of a quality Load Control dyno, but I am still having problems coming to a definitive answer. I was hoping that you may be able to provide some insight in to what you look for in a Dyno and what price range is reasonable for a 2 wheel drive LC Dyno. As my research has turned up results that span a wide range of prices and features most of witch seems to yield very little correlative data. Any info/tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Jake

You have plenty of different brands to chose from which is a headache in itself. I was in the same boat for a while but decided Mainline is the way to go! And thats what Im getting. As for as rolling roads for Steady state control Mainline is the best with Dyno Dynamics probably close second. My best advice is to talk to bunch of people who use different brands. Salesman are gonna try to sell you theirs and claim there's is better than all the others but honestly look at REAL WORLD features and talk to REAL users then decide the budget you have.

I think Andre and other EFI schools chose Mainline because of their amazing datalogging and load control features. These are the guys who know their stuff. My advice is to get a brand that lets you upgrade and expand easily as you grow.

Any good dyno will give you accurate and repeatable results. So talk to people with different brands and see how the tech support and equipment stacks up.

One company I recently used was DYNOCOM and I walked away pretty disappointed on how it controlled the load but the price was cheap but YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Look around for some used dynos, sometime you can get a really good deal!

I would agree that Mainline is a great brand but i am concerned about how much its gonna cost me to get it from Australia to North-east Wyoming, USA i see that you (Tommy) are tagged as being in the states have you ordered your unit yet or done any pricing as to freight cost?

After watching Andre find MTB in the EFI Tuning Fundamentals course I wish my local tuners had a mainline dyno, haha

I Met Todd from Mainline at PRIand spoke to them about my delivery concerns as well. I did not get mine yet. The delivery cost for me is alot lot less because the port is 5 min from me but for you its about 1500-2500 depending on where your closest port is. You should contact Craig at Mainline or go on their website and Im sure he will be happy to help you out! Now they are not the cheapest dyno you can get here in the states but you WILL NOT get the same features or capabilities from anyone else. I look at it this way, if you finance it and you need it to work right and be dependable then get the best you can get within your budget! Downtime means you aren't making money and that payment still has to be made! First decide what your budget is and then see if you can get anything decent !

We have a Dynojet 424 XLC² Chassis Dyno, so it's 4x4 and both drums are LC via an eddy current brake. Currently it's running Winpep7.

I like the fact, that it's only one drum and the car is not moving around - which I am pretty scared about to be honest when I watch videos from rolling roads.

Apperently I'm paranoid, because it seems to work well :)

One upside is, that the results aren't related to the strapping technique, which I also didn't know before watching the Dyno Operations Webinar :)

The load control works OK, but I'm anxious to see how it will do the job with the actual version of the Dynoware RT stack and the Winpep8 Software we ordered.

According to Dynojet the real time torque output for optimizing the ignition timing is much finer, so once we have it installed i'll report back on that.

I know Andre has tuned some cars in Germany on a Dynojet a couple years back, I'm pretty sure it had to be on the same hardware we are still using at the moment, so maybe he can also comment on that brand.

Right now, there's no communication with the ECU of the car (except OBD2) that can display data in realtime, but with the new hardware it is possible. It is CAN based, so maybe there is a way to get it working with the use of custom CAN templates. I'll talk to Dynojet once we have it in house.

I'm not really familiar with tuning on other types of Dynos, so I can't compare the features I've used ;)

Just to throw this I to the mix, I have a hub dyno, a Dynapack DAQ5. It's 2wd, has full load control and is very simple to use.

I've had people try to rubbish it as it can only hold approx 1300bhp, where as most Eddie current brake roller dyno have claims upwards of 2000bhp, the difference comes when they struggle to control a car which has a sharp increase in torque and they struggle to hold 400bhp. There is also a distinct lack of vehicles in Scotland that have enough power to take my dyno near its limit.

The Dynapack has only sensor inputs, no OBDII and no CAN connectivity.

It really comes down to what you need the dyno for and your budget, is it going to be a revenue generator? where your rolling cars on and off quickly. Or is it going to be primarily a tuning tool? Where you'll have only 1 or 2 cars a day on it? What information do you need to collect? Is it going to be used by multiple operators? Will you be hiring it out to other/self tuners?

Chris pretty much nailed! I omitted the Dynapack because I assumed he was looking for roller dyno, they are very accurate but if you do automatic cars they are tricky, plus here in the states they are very pricey! about 65k for a 2wd setup!

I've used the Dynapack and absolutely loved it. Zero chance of wheel spin or the car getting off the dyno. Very accurate and repeatable. They read high but that's not a big concern. They are however very expensive compared to a roller and they lack the data logging sophistication and CAN integration of the Mainline.

The Mainline dyno is really impressive and the 2WD600L is priced very competitively. Note that some of the more advanced features of the dynolog software are not available in the base dyno but are only included in the premium model. I've found the load control excellent and the repeatability good although this doe depend to a degree on your strapping method. So far we haven't exceeded about 400 whp so I haven't had anything resembling traction issues. Guys are regularly dynoing 1000 + whp on a roller but the traction capability will depend to a degree on the way the engine makes torque - ie an engine which has a very sharp increase in torque over a short rpm span can be difficult to hold.

I've used several dynojet dynos in various parts of the world and they're effective enough but their data logging just isn't in the same league as the Mainline.