Chassis Dyno Questions., I'm considering a purchase. Options

[Series9]

Anybody here have one?

It's not a trivial piece of equipment and would have to pay for itself. I'm interested in hearing from those with experience.
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[scotty b]

Dyno runs will not pay for the machine. The tuning you do for the customer at X-$/hr between runs is what pays for the dyno. I know several people that have, or have had them and I have been told that by every one of them. I know of a engine dyno sitting in a garage for 8 + years by now for that very reason.

[Jake Raby]

Dyno-Jet ONLY
Put it in the ground.

Like Scotty said, don't depend on off the street biz to keep it going, if you are like us you don't want those clowns in the shop anyway. They bring in oil leaking POS cars and bother the shit out of you.

We use our dyno-jet almost everyday, like any other tool. I probably haven't dynoed a dozen cars for local people and don't even advertise that we have it.. They are cool if you have a use for it in your business and can keep it busy.. I paid for mine in cash, it was a great purchase and increased capability to a level that few have.

[brant]

Joe,

I'm not a shop and not qualified to answer at all.
but I have spent about 12 hours on a shop dyno-jet at my engine builders. This was with a couple of different motors.

My observation is that it's an engine building, engine tuning tool. I think my engine builder likes it because it allows him to send a fresh build out with confidence that it is set up the way he wants it to be. He is now dynoing all of his builds. He is finding and fixing things in the process. I know of one -6 he built which he was displeased with the cam timing and the way the motor pulled on the dyno. It led to a full tear down of a brand new motor, and a discovery that his cam manufacturer had f'd up the cam spec on the brand new cams he had built the motor with.

thats just one example, but its a motor builders tool the way I see it. Used to tune a fresh build and get everything dialed before sending it off to the track.

track time is actually super expensive if you include the tow/fuel/entry fee/ etc.

dyno'ing a new build for a half or full day is much cheaper insurance that a customer isn't going to tow 12 hour to find out that there is something "not quite right" with their new very expensive motor.

In fact. I was told that my builder's warranty expired the minute we took it off of the dyno and pushed it out of the shop. He wis thus able to prevent a customer from doing something stupid and destroying a new motor because of stupid operator error

(such getting the timing wrong, forgetting to put the oil in, or something else idiotic)

As a builder he is able to verify that everything was perfect when it left his shop and that anything beyond that is the operators liability.

brant

[ellisor3]

Joe,
From a customer perspective, I would be far more likely to take my car to a shop who had a dyno in the first place. Having a dyno may attract more performance based clients. In my case, I am considering having a dyno run after you are finished to complte any fine tuning, but I would have to find someone who had a dyno and who know the TEC GT system as well. The pond is pretty dry. I would love for you to have one, I am just not sure how many hours of dyno tuning it would take for it to pay for itself, and how many customers you will have that want a dyno run. If it is two or three a year and a couple hours a pop, it may not make sense.

On the one hand, like Jake said, you don't want to advertise it and bring in the knuckle draggers, but on the other hand you may need to let people know you have that service to bring in the additional clients to justify having it.

If you get one, will you have it installed and ready for a run on Saturday??? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/av-943.gif)