My dyno rant
 

:bowdown: what spirit were you channeling to brush up on your olde tongue?

Best post EVER! (or at least to date)

BTW, do you think that yea good lord might be trying to tell you something. Hahaha. :)

i hear flyinmiata has got a dyno, maybe they'll only charge a leg?

Perhaps a certain EE could repair a certain dyno's wiring, in exchange for usage of repaired equipment.

PS, you should move this way. We have dynos running out of our asses...

Verily brother, I say unto you, the object of your desire lays a mear 300 leagues to the north east.

http://www.revolutionsperformance.com/dyno.php

Haha.

Joe, methinks thou hast an abundance of time, verily.

publish! somebody publish this man!

That was probably the most entertaining 7 minutes I'll spend all day.

And I thought I had it bad here trying to find a dyno and a good operator!!

dude...

It is none but he who is called Laycock de Normanville, the patron saint of Mechanical Angst and Frustration. And be the words of Shakespeare's Othello, the Moore of Venice, the conclusion of my story. Yet concluded the story be? Or be it but the merest prelude of that which is to come. Know ye, dear Braineack, who wields heavily the banstick and is the Administrator of Forums, satisfaction shall yet be mine, should I be made to travel unto the ends of San Diego county, yea, even unto those areas where white men with BMWs fear to tread.
Foul Tormentor! That ye wouldst raise so distant a hope. Should not such an expanse I traverse for these services, for though Southern California once be the birthplace of Car Culture, so desolate a wasteland hath it become. For sooth, the cruel reign of the Evil Tyrant her Lordship Chairman Mary D. Nichols, a blight unto the land hath been. So numerous are the Rules and Orders of the California Air Resources Board, that none should prosper in this dark age of emissions control whose business the modification and tuning of automotive engines be. Like unto the rocky soil of the place which is called Baja, their roots find no purchase and they wither and die.
For no lesser the journey to Grand Junction be. Should not the Land of Fruits and Nuts yield up but one place which is to be the provider of dyno services? And in the fullness of time, so shall it come to pass. For I am he who is called the Tinkerer and the Designer of Things, and no obstacle shall be so great that it should not in this quest be overcome.
Nay, for he who is called Scott the Lesser has made his peace- that so plentiful be the business of Scott's Auto & Muffler, no more customers does he desire. A curse shall be unto his head- for as he fails to equip his dwelling with any but the direst and most aged of equipment, shall the coming of the electric vehicles be his ruin. For in the end, will the cars which roam the soil of Southern California have not mufflers, nor internal combustion engines neither, and woe unto those who ill-prepared for this revolution be, and a pauper's retirement be their lot.

Yet dynanometers runneth out from thine ass? So strange be the things which issue forth from the asses of those who inhabit the mysterious lands to the East... https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=226746&postcount=8

It is a sad, sad thing. But why would you try to tune a car in N.C. anyway? You should go to LA where the cars are pointless and the women plastic, but in both cases the important attributes are regularly and fantastically inflated.

I won't even pretend to be able to talk like that.
I just called Rocky at Dennstedt's and he says they send all their guys to The Dyno Shop in Santee... http://www.thedynoshop.com/pages/contact.htm Tell'em Dennstedts sent you.

You folks from California sure speak strangely. Good luck with thy quest Joe.

I am still saving my pennies to run to Church's Automotive in Long Beach for my tuning. There are several here and on M.net that have used them with great success. I asked him about the MS and he said they have tuned on it and the Hydra before. $170 an hour for tuning though...

there is a local dude who can tune your car. at a viper shop that is.

http://www.dcperformance.com/

you are looking for chris. he can tune megasquirt very well. in fact, thats where im going to tune my car once turbo is in.

my head hurts just reading that.

Sucks that you cant catch a break.

Whats the difference between a load bearing dyno and a non load bearing dyno, if there is such a thing?

joe, call the dyno manufacturer's local rep. tell them you want to tune and that every where you go, their brand of dyno is broken and you want satisfaction.

Here's one: http://aussieimportsllc.com/ ...guy is Steve Nichols. Decent enough dude, been around the block and sells dyno dynamics products. met him at Shiv's open house back in the day. Dont know if he's still in the biz. his website sucks balzac.

Heh. I'm just getting a tad frustrated. There are plenty of shops in the area, I just wanted to find one close to home. The Mustang and DynoDyne websites have about a half dozen shops listed that are <50 miles away- I need to start using the phone first before I drive out to every shop I come across.

You have two basic types of dyno- intertial and steady-state (aka load-bearing.)

An inertial dyno consists of a very large, very heavy drum. We're talking about a roller four feet in diameter here. There's a reason most DynoJet dynos require you do drive up on a lift to get over the drums. See this picture: http://www.goffautomotivemachine.com/a248.jpg Those huge boxes in the back are where the drums are housed.

The drum is mounted on a bearing, and is not restrained in any way. The wheels are placed upon the drum, full throttle is applied, and the power of the engine acts against the inertia of the drum, causing it to begin spinning.

The mass (weight) of the drum is a known constant. The dyno constantly measures the speed of the drum, and calculates the rate at which it is accelerating. By applying Newton's second law (force = mass x acceleration) the dyno computer can figure out how much force (torque) is being applied to the drum. DynoJet dynos are of this design.

The downside here is that because nothing is restraining the drum, anytime you apply force to it the drum will accelerate. This is fine if you just want to do a simple HP / Torque plot (which is the chart that everyone posts when they brag about their engine) but it's not very useful for tuning.

ECUs like the MS divide up their fuel and ignition tables into a row / column sheet consisting of a bunch of individual cells. To properly tune a device like this, you need to be able to hold the engine in an operating condition such that RPM and MAP are dead-center in the middle of one of the cells while you make adjustments to the value of that cell. Once you're satisfied, you move to the next cell.

This is where a steady-state dyno comes in. They use some kind of variable braking mechanism to hold the speed of the rollers constant. If you apply more power, more braking force is applied to the drum. If you reduce power, the braking force is reduced. Modern steady-state dynos typically use an electromagnetic brake (the so-called eddy-current dyno), some, such as the RotoTest, use a hydraulic pump as the brake- same basic concept. To determine the amount of force being applied to the roller, you can either measure the amount of power being applied to the brake in its native units (voltage and current in the case of the electromagnetic brake, pressure and flow for the hydraulic unit) or more commonly you can use a linear load-sensing cell, essentially a fancy electric scale, and directly measure the force being applied by the braking unit upon its mount.

So for instance, you might tell the dyno operator to set the rollers for 3,000 RPM (engine RPM, not dyno RPM) and then you use the throttle to put MAP at, say 50 kPa. The dyno, having been set to 3,000 RPM, applies enough braking force to the drum such that the engine can spin up to 3,000 RPM, but no more. You tune that cell, then you push the throttle down a little to get 75 kPa. The dyno senses that the drum is accelerating, and applies more braking force to hold it at speed. Mustang and DynoDynamics dynos are of this design.


Dynojet does offer an eddy-current brake as an option for their dynos, but frankly the more I read the more I'm turned off by Dynojet in general. I'm going to find someone around here with a proper dyno.

Tis

and i've been here a long time

Joe's post on the difference between dynos should end up in the FAQ. Best explanation I've heard so far!

+1 very clear and concise explanation.

Mr. Perez, how long did that take to write?

Probably longer than my employer would care to know. :rolleyes:

"It is said unto me that thou art the keeper and bearer of knowledge, yea, and also of dyno services, that by which my small red car might be elevated unto a state of greater tune whose equal is known only as nirvana amongst the faithful and true!"


i died when i read that,

joe, from now on, you should answer every post like that,
it would be a great hit with the noobs lol
and give me awsome quotes to put under my name lol

Joe, very witty writing my friend!!!

One of the best, if not THE best post in any forum...by far!!!

Tony

Ok, how's this for a start: http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread...27#post3034527

That was awesome.

:rofl:

That made my day. What a great write-up!

d

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In some weird way I find that easier to read.

Guess thats what 4 years of college english (with one year with a professor that was a shakespearing actor) gets you.

Post of the Year...

I'm sorry to hear of your plight.

I think it helps to imagine the text being spoken aloud by E.B. Farnum from "Deadwood", though for some reason I can't seem to help slipping constantly back and forth between Shakespearean English, Victorian English, and King James Biblical English.

Publish that on any other miata site and I doubt anyone would notice the changes in context. It has no gangsta lingo, so that limits its skope methinks. So don't be jockin' they steez, please. I agree this to be one of the greatest posts of any car site I've ever posted to. Makes me glad to be a newbie subscriber. Now, I'll go home, re-read the FAQs, and Corky's book twice (just bought it today,) before I ever ask my first question.
Best Always
Alden

Yesterday I spent like an hour or more playing with tapestry generator, making quite the awesome comicbook of your adventures, stealing or adopting many of your lines....

And the computer ate it. Damnit damnit damnit.

And if you don't invite me along when you go tune I'll drive to your house and put a flaming paperbag on your doorstep - it won't be empty but it will be fresh.

Absolutely hilarious!! :bowrofl: One question though, when does "his wife" enter the scene?:)

Sounds more like "The Comedy of Errors". May Providence guide thy search.

haha a most excellent post...:bowrofl:

beware though, on Thursday, the company I am with fired someone, for excessive internet "browsing"

wasn't even porn:)

:bowrofl:

I just about spit my soda out reading that.

Well, I'd say you've set the bar now. Pics or ban, my friend. Best get back to it.

Act 5: The Fail is Strong With This One.

Thou mayest recall that did I lament the telephone ought be my future guide in these proceedings. Verily, have I failed my own advice to heed. And failure is my lot and my companion , lo this sunny afternoon.

"Mech-Tech Motorsports in Escondido," said James as he set his Martini upon the table. "For they art great in the ways of tuning, and well-equipped with a dyno indeed." My story had I related unto him during the course of our regular Thursday festivities, being sufficient of food and drink they are. And knowing that vast sums of money had he squandered upon his $30,000 1991 Camaro, and that some proportion of this money for dyno services has been required, did to his advice merit I ascribe. For the Twentieth of April is nearly upon us, being the date of The Puke, which each year is the San Diego Miata Club's greatest assault upon the mountains and the canyons too, that much rubber be wasted and much fuel consumed, and yet that I should participate once more must my engine be tuned without delay.

Thus in the place of the mid-day meal did I embark once more upon the road, to Escondido, being not a great distance from my place of business. My approach was met with signs of hope and reassurance, for many were the race cars and dune buggies situation within and without this small shoppe, and a VW dragster as well.

"Sir," spake I unto the man whose shirt bore the name of Jim, " I see that thou art a most accomplished fabricator of racing cars. Lo, that I behold before me a Haltech ECU upon this Pinto engine mounted, a great tuner thou must also be. And hark, that a dyno my eyes reveal before me! I beg of you sir, that my friend and I would beset upon its rollers and be held many times in a constant state of load, that our Megasquirts, not so different from thine own engine management, be tuned."

"We're not set up for steady-state tuning."

"I am foiled! Surely, though thy dyno be a DynoJet model 224x, must not the optional Eddy Current Brake with Integrated Load Cell be fitted? Why else a 224x would thy posses?"

"Can't help ya."

"Sons of a Motherless Goat; There is surely not one steady-state dyno in all of North County!"

"These aren't the rollers you're looking for," spake he, and in a curious fashion quickly his hand flashed before my eyes. "These aren't the rollers I'm looking for" I said, or rather heard myself to say, as though an observer of my own actions detached, yet aware.

"You can go about your business."

"I can go about my business."

"Move along."

"Move along, move along."

I'm going to be awake all weekend waiting for the next chapter of this story.

In all seriousness, can someone please explain this to me? Why on earth would a shop spend God only knows how many thousands of dollars for a dyno and NOT get one with a brake and a steady-state load cell?

because you dont need it to tune fairly well.

1 baseline run
2 fuel tuning run (autotune) gets you 95% there
3 baseline 2
4 adjust timing and run again. see where you lose/gain and readjust so it's all gain
5 baseline 3
etc.

it doesn't take long to re-run a dynojet dyno pull.

and when you consider the cost of the dynojet compared to the ones you like--it's significant (3-5x?). and the number of customers who do a simple pull versus hardcore tuning, it comes down to dollars I guess.