Test stand?

[zero]

So I was thinking about my failed turbo swap the summer before last, and I realized that I got a bit in over my head with too little time to do things right. Because the car was my daily driver, I couldnt have it apart too long. I was wondering what was involved in building a test stand so I could do all of the baseline megasquirt settings and tuning outside of the car, and swap it in running. I figured I would need a radiator and run an alternator through a voltage reg to a battery and to the starter, a small fuel tank and pump with the fpr. Other than that, what would I need on a stand, and does anyone have plans to build one. Thanks.

-will

[JSM]

Great question. I'm thinking of doing the same thing. I missed out on my 83zx turbo car purchase for 400.00 so I'm still looking.

 

My concern was the starter since if I recall it bolts up to the tranny. How would you run this and cap the drive shaft end w/out oil coming out?

 

Also would you mock the piping for the intercooler?

[naviathan]

It's really not that difficult if you have the tools and such to make it. You'd have to build a stand to support the motor mounts with the engine. I was considering a U shape cross member supported by two triangles of either pipe or angle iron. You could bolt the starter in place without a transmission using nuts and washers then make support to hold the radiator up. Everything else is simple, but make sure you have some kind of fan to circulate the air and keep the engine cool.

[Tony D]

we made a bunch of these back in the 80's for various engines. Easiest way to do it is out of 2x4" box channel. Take an old crossmember from a donor car, and you can simply bolt the crossmember to it...make them long enough and you can also do the rear crossmember for the transmission. We usually only had the transmission bellhousing, and bolted it via some large shock mounts to a frame, all it needs to do is hold the starter to get it spinning. Make a small control panel to monitor whatever parameters you need to watch, use an aircraft or ground support throttle cable to control engine speed... a box or Angle Iron base to mount the battery, and of course a radiator from something to cool it all, along with a higher mounted surge tank for adding fluid. Use a BIG muffler off a truck, and duct the exhaust someplace far away. You will be amased how loud it will get especially if you have a stock fan... Which leads me to say "use an electric fan if you can" because its way quieter. it can even be a 110V fan, controlled off HVAC controls (lor a thermostat like from an oven) it doesn't need to be 12V.

 

Now, going further, to do load plotting, you would need a way to apply a load, and that will get tricky. The easiest way to do it would be to find a hydraulic pump for the horsepower you are expecting to produce, and set up a simple hydraulic circuit with a flowmeter and some pressure gauges. You would need the transmission complete in that case, or rig a coupling to the flywheel... You can adequately put nice static loads using this technology, and given the hydraulic engineering tables available out there, figureing out how much load you have on the engine at any one point would be easy. "DIY DYNO" is probably a bit much for this project. For a simple fire-up it's just as easy to do it in-car.

 

For a simple run up, a bellhousing, starter, battery and some friends feet to keep it from moving around on the ground is enough in the junkyard... I have a half-cut S30 laying around out back, but it's a pain draggin' it up front to do mockups, I just do it in-car.

 

I mean, after saying all this, you are not really looking for a "startup" stand, you want an "Engine Dyno", as that is what you will need to put varying loads on the engine to set up the MS.

 

MS is pretty much cut and dried on the fuel end of it, WOT tuning should not be a big deal and can be dialed in from scratch in a few hours tops, just making runs with the brakes applied. With all the maps available out there, there really isn't much that is that far off that it "won't run" good enough to drive around and tune it to better than stock drivability in a few hours after initial startup. The swap is what takes the time, then troubleshooting any issues on no-start. Tuning needs drive time or dyno time. Unless you have another engine to do the mockup on you will need time no matter what. For practical purposes, people have done all the install and used the MS to datalog parameters with the stock system in the car, and then did final tie-ins after they had datalogged and gotten out any "glitches" they observed. It's not a "one or the other" proposition.

 

But like I said, the MS has a lot of maps out there that are plenty close enough to get a car running around better than most stock systems out of the box. From there tuning takes time no matter what. Are you planning some sort of never-done before engine? I know when mine was started up, I used Bruce's V8 parameters on my turbo Six, and it ran and drove just fine. Pig rich, but it ran and drove within 15 minutes. Up to that point, it was 8 hours to construct the wiring harness on-the-car. Had it been an EFI car to begin with, I could have likely hacked the stock wiring in a couple of hours and been runnning.

[JSM]

I think Zero and my concern is just not touching are cars until it works even minimally. I don't want to lose the use of my car at all unless I can have planned down time.

 

I'm always amazed at how a few hour project on my Z turns into an all weekend thing.

 

I've got the space in the garage so I don't mind setting up the stand.

[BlackBeaut]

This is v2. First one I made was 40mm angle iron, it was completely bendy!! This one is 50x25x2.5mm tube and is stupidly solid. The castors are rated to 600kg so should cope! Obviously need to get a radiator mount on there, will have an electric fan fitted. I'll be using a 280ZXT T5 bellhousing on the back and and will rig up some cunning mount. Plan is to get my L24 with SUs on there running with 280ZX dizzy and alternator. Then swap to an L28 EFI setup, get MS working on it, then fit ITBs. All this will happen *some when* At the moment it's cold and dark so sod it I say!

 

Cheers,

Rob

[Tony D]

I like knowing that 1'X2" box will work, that 2X4" stuff (er.... 50 X 100mm for those Englishmen not using English Measurements... LOL!) is bloody heavy!

 

I guess for idle setups and physical fabrication of the feeder harnesses and etc it would get those down, but make no mistake, you won't be able to do load plots on the fuel map without a way to load it down, and that adds complexity considerably. But for a "startup" and "proving" or "Run In" bench, I suppose it will work admirably. Just remember there is a lot of HEAT rejected, have a way to evacuate it (leave the shed door open or whatever!)

[BlackBeaut]

The number of Englishmen using imperial measurements is very small these days, I'll use them if I have to but otherwise it's straight to sensible, easy to use metric I'm nearly 35 and was always taught metric at school, then had a brief spell in the archaic world of aviation where they insisted on still using imperial, but I think even that industry is making the switch. Anyway, I'm messing with a Japanese car, that uses metric measurements so stick with it I say!

 

Good point about not being able to do load work on the test bed, that would indeed be tricky! Like you say, just there to get the wiring in place and getting the engine up and running. I believe MS can self-map to an extent these days using a wideband O2 sensor, anyway that's still a ways away!

 

Cheers,

Rob

[twoeightythreez]

If T-5 bellhousings are hard to find you could always use the 3NW-type auto bellhousings.

[Tony D]

I have to agree, I was import guy in America, and then did apprenticeship time in Japan, so I'm 'all metric'... I'm constantly converting back and forth between metric and imperial measurements and back in conversationsto people...they think I stutter! LOL

 

I loved my time in Liverpool earlier this year. The Engineers were driving around Escort Vans with MPH speedos, KM Odos, and the street signs in miles, but exit countdowns in meters. Oh, the hell the 'old timers' must have!

 

At least you got rid of the shilling in the last 20 years! LOL

I wish America would simply "go metric" and get with the rest of the world. I hate fractions. Decimals are so much easier.

[BlackBeaut]

You gotta love the consistency in the UK I measure in metric, but there's no way I'm going to drive in anything other than miles (crummy kilometers!!) Weights are stupid here too, there was a big push by the EU to ban grocers selling fruit and veg in lb pounds, could only advertise in kg. Given that most of the buying public in the UK are used to buying in lbs there was slight disagreement to that suggestion from our friends on the continent :D

 

The escort vans odo running in KMs sounds well dodgy though unless it was a bizarre import from Europe that had had it's speedo dial changed. Years ago I had an MX5 (Miata, Eunos Roadster) Japanese import that had a KM only dial, no good in the UK, so swap the face to a mph/kmph dial but the odo still read silly numbers of course.

 

And let's not mention pre-decimalisation currency, thank God I'm not that old, it sounded like utter madness!! "Can you spare a thru'pence Guv'nor" - whaaaa??!!!

 

Cheers,

Rob

[Tony D]

Maybe that's what it was, read in miles and odo in miles, but speeds posted in KM/H!

 

LOL