Engine test stand, in car tuning and dyno tools

Why do I suddenly feel so inadequate?

Very impressive!

Larry

It's just like a car. It's a group of individual pieces and I bet there are no individual pieces you could not do. You just have to stick through all of the pieces.

You want to tell me what Chip you are using to read the thermocouples?

Jameco, transistors and op amps. The thermal couples are done, and anything using resistor values are done. I am working on using a picVII for rpm and timing advance which times events and sends it to a microprocessor. This is how I set up circuits to read servo values from r/c receivers.

There are several units out there that do this but there would be no fun in that.

This is one of the original circuits here:

I will have to come over and see your setup in better weather. I just live in Central Illinois. Where in Indiana you at? If you are close enough to Chicago, then we have monthly club meetings.

I am in Evansville; SW tip of Indiana. If you get in the area let me know.

I expect it will be about 3 months before I get this all pulled together. I am gathering up all the parts to get the engine fired up, and I need to build one big circuit encompassing all the designs I have been working on.

I am off today working on the RPM circuit. This is pretty cool! This measures 2 things. One to find RPM and the other to measure timing advance.

Dave I was going to tell you I graduated from SIU but I am thought you might loose confidence in me.

One of the nicest Panteras here in Dallas/Fort Worth is owned by another SIU grad, Frank Jerome. Frank is a Pantera and ZF transaxle guru and had a business restoring Panteras until a couple of years ago. He still does ZF stuff. He just finished installing an EFI on his award winning black Pushbutton. For his regular work, he just finished up all the concrete construction work on the new Cowboys stadium where he was the superintendent in charge of the project.

Speaking of Illinois schools, how about Eastern Illinois, home Tony Romo, and a several other NFL players and head coaches.

And don't forget the U of I where Crazy Dave graduated from. What a state!

How old is Frank?

Well, Yes, I did get my engineering degree from the UofI. But that was after I got my first BS from the Home of the Salukis. Thats right, SIU baby, Electronics Technology, Class of 86.

Have you ever been to the airport there?

Very cool stuff! I would like to do an individual cylinder pyro setup as well. It would be a reality already if those damn thermocouples werent so expensive. Keep up the awesome work and of course keep us posted.

Blaine

That was actually why I started on my own set up. The senders are too bad. You can get a full set for about $300 (8):

http://www.egauges.com/vdo_send.asp?Sender=ISSPRO_Thermo_2_5

But the units on the market to read them are quite pricey.

Progress albeit slow is constant. Got the mufflers welded up today:



Most of the circuits including RPM and timing advance have been worked out. Working on getting the entire platform setup. Building each circuit individually to read each parameter.

This could all be smaller but having it segmented this way allows me to change components easier:



This is really just the start. When everything is proven it will be shrunk.

quote:

How old is Frank?

Lower 50ish? If you'd like to talk with him, I have his email and phone. Contact me off-line.

Unfortunately I am not bright enough with electronics to make my own. The least expensive one instrument I found was this one http://www.mglavionics.com/html/maxi_singles.html

Its the TC-3. A 12 channel at $290 was quite a deal compared to all the others I have seen.

Blaine

They are pricey. When I used to fly the piston powered airplanes twins we always ran rich of peak EGT. If the cylinders were matched we could run lean of egt but they had to be matched.