PTS Flowbench Forum

I have absolutely no intention of this being my every day bench. However, having the manometers can be telling in port development. I have mine now hooked to a manometer as well.

It WILL be interesting to say the least.

I want to get my 2 cents in here. I have a friend with an old SF bench. The way they change air flow direction to the manometers is a carbon disk of some kind with holes in it. My friend told me this him self, that on his bench it was reading low on some of his re-tests that he had done a few years with the same bench. So how would an untouched head from earlier testing lose flow on a calibrated bench? The direction switching disk on the SF bench had worn over all the testing that had been done causing a slight leak to the manometers. This cause them to read low according to him. I will not mention his name as he is a good friend and want not to cause any issues for him. This would cause the SF bench to read low on older SF benches making Chad's that is reading correctly seem to be reading high compared to the SF benches.

Chad, you did Frank and Scott Park's heads didn't you? I saw pictures of those and they are awesome! Frank is an old friend of mine when he was here in Salt Lake City. Proof is in the pudding as Frank and Scott's dragster has set records and wins a lot. So I guess if your bench reads high Chad then it must inflate the horsepower also which seems to inflate the performance on their engine and makes them win. Damn you Chad!

John

jfholm wrote:I want to get my 2 cents in here. I have a friend with an old SF bench. The way they change air flow direction to the manometers is a carbon disk of some kind with holes in it. My friend told me this him self, that on his bench it was reading low on some of his re-tests that he had done a few years with the same bench. So how would an untouched head from earlier testing lose flow on a calibrated bench? The direction switching disk on the SF bench had worn over all the testing that had been done causing a slight leak to the manometers. This cause them to read low according to him. I will not mention his name as he is a good friend and want not to cause any issues for him. This would cause the SF bench to read low on older SF benches making Chad's that is reading correctly seem to be reading high compared to the SF benches.

Chad, you did Frank and Scott Park's heads didn't you? I saw pictures of those and they are awesome! Frank is an old friend of mine when he was here in Salt Lake City. Proof is in the pudding as Frank and Scott's dragster has set records and wins a lot. So I guess if your bench reads high Chad then it must inflate the horsepower also which seems to inflate the performance on their engine and makes them win. Damn you Chad!

John

In fact, I send stuff to Frank and Scott to confirm! Their heads flowed within 2-4 cfm on their bench. In fact did you see what they did this weekend?

Scott Parks Runs 6.776/197.59/-0.644, Now #5 A/ND Index: 7.42
Record: 6.810/191.95

Another funny thing, they are bringing it back from California for me!

To be honest the numbers I know are correct from what I've seen. This is more of a you don't have a SF therefore it's not real. I try to explain everything we know about this subject but people are blinded by magazine articles and internet experts. It's a slippery slope with retail customers and perhaps I've just lost a little patience!

I think when Bruce starts selling complete benches retail it will raise the "street cred" immensely. Maybe we should get Hot Rod or Car Craft to do an article about the new kid (PTS building ready to run benches) on the block taking on Big Blue? Heck, they like the David vs Goliath thing.

Having well known shops that produce great results like Speier Racing Heads waive the PTS banner also helps give the rest of our benches credibility.

Chad,
are you in Kansas also? One of these days I want to go see Frank and if I do I will stop by and see you guys also. Never Mind, I looked at your web site and answered my own question. I am getting old and slow

John

SWAirflowServices wrote:I think when Bruce starts selling complete benches retail it will raise the "street cred" immensely. Maybe we should get Hot Rod or Car Craft to do an article about the new kid (PTS building ready to run benches) on the block taking on Big Blue? Heck, they like the David vs Goliath thing.

Having well known shops that produce great results like Speier Racing Heads waive the PTS banner also helps give the rest of our benches credibility.

Well thanks for that!

I want to do my confirming and have my own back to back data and it will be sent down the road! I'm that confident in what I have. For me ending all speculation it seems like a logical move. The sad thing is I already know the answers, just don't have the data... I have out of house data but I want to see it myself.

I hope that makes sense..

jfholm wrote:Chad,
are you in Kansas also? One of these days I want to go see Frank and if I do I will stop by and see you guys also. Never Mind, I looked at your web site and answered my own question. I am getting old and slow

John

LOL, Yep I will be seeing them Wednesday. We have a new project to go over. A true IRON Hemi head. It will be a challenge!

Chad if you ever wanna go digital on the SF600 keep me in mind! I just realized you now have 3 flowbenches? That just ain't right as I only have one right now!

Not to take away from Chad's post but I'd like to add a little of my thoughts on PTS;

I'm happy with the direction this DIY market is going, I don't find myself thinking I need to compete with anyone in the market (with the exception of one anyways and it's not Big Blue) my products speak for themselves. I am comfortable with the workload I have now. I have been able to watch guys who would love to have a flowbench but could not afford one before have one in their shop now.

I have watched so many guys start a business now that they have a flowbench in their shop and that makes me feel really good! My flowbench parts and diy benches are being used in shops to develop parts that are out there racing, most do not advertise what they have in their shop (glad Chad does and takes up that "charge"). I have had the opportunity to interact with some pretty well known individuals in the racing community and that's been amazing to say the least!

I'm just a normal guy not a flowbench guru, happy for the opportunity this forum has afforded me and the friendships I have made and that means more than the money it makes, oh do like a little $$$'s also mind you. I would be hard pressed to "sell-out" to a Corporation as I would feel I am leaving my customers down!






Although . . . . a 1/4-1/2 mill might change my mind!!!

Chad, I feel your pain but also think this is one more step in the evolution of the PTS-Flowbench-Tech Flowbench. You are considered an honest man in the industry the bench racers and pipe dream guys that live on many of these forums have no idea what it take to do what you do for a living, be profitable at it and sell a winning product. Snap on Tools don’t make the mechanic nor does owning a Bridgport qualify you as a machinist, though many on these forums would think so. Next it will be flow simulators and modeling, they all like to talk about the model they built on the computer that is BLA BLA BAL… if you don’t own the software or use it well you get the picture.

Chad I know what you will do and that will be honest and tell us all what you see in the end and that will do nothing but add credibility to the PTS line of Products. Now here is where I diverge, I believe we are talking about three type of FlowBenches, SF which is a production bench possibly now made in Korea who knows, then you have the PTS-Flowbench-Tech design and then there is DIY and we have all seen plenty of these, some very nice and others, well!. In R&D on the PTS DM with Bruce we did a lot of testing on ADC (Analog to Digital Converters) we have two choices on hand and yes cost is factor, we could use 10 Bit resolution or 12 Bit Resolution? Here is the facts we tested both and we were hard pressed to find any difference, at 10 Bits the 16” DP is measured at .015 increments averaged at a minimum of 100 times a second, the 12 bit is .004 averaged at 200 times a about 3 time more sensitive. But we could see little difference in the core flow range of flow with normal plate use. The 12 bit DM was so sensitive that it picked up the air pulses from the motors and affected low flow numbers on tests where we used a 650CFM internal plate measuring a 25CFM calibration plate we were off as much as 2CFM now remember 25CFM on a 650 internal is .02? of DP so yes we were splitting hairs but that is what we do when we test the product..

My point and for all those that own an SF 100 series bench I mean no disrespect, but first off the only thing a 100 series has in common with any of the other benches is the SF name second I believe and it does not matter what OIL you use in your monometer, that a user could not consistently read a monometer the same every time SF 120 or SF600. It can come down to a simple I am ready for a new pair of glasses? To many variables more error and error in operation creates differences in flow numbers, period we are not talking same day testing but one guy VS the other on the other side of the continent and it does not matter what bench your using. Find me one guy out there that could see .020 on a monometer consistently and call it so?

That fact of the mater is the bench racers have always been a sore point in the industry and yes it is fun to see them show up at the track pulling there Hallmark trailer with the wife’s Escalade  just to here them say that there not racing today they are there to test some new parts on loan from NASA.

At the end of the day it is really all about Error’s, the design of the PTS bench with PTS DM reduces the points of Error in the benches operation Period! it does and does it well. The fact is as long as man is involved we will never take the human error out of the test process and procedures and that the data shows consistently, this my friends is why the most recent test was done with heads and not a fixed test fixture, as the results would have shown the discrepancies of the Flow Benches but it is the averaging of errors is what make the numbers look good to all look at the averaging in the results.

Nuff said I will get off my box.

Good luck with your new toy Chad I always am up for a new tool, I look forward to much discussion, maybe even some input from SF tech support when you ask them why your new bench does not read right.

Rick

I hear both of you and agree totally.

I will never turn it into a "us" vs. "them". I'm just going to "show" people that what we are doing is a viable source of information and it's foolish to think that just because it was made in our shop it's any less.

Besides, like you said this could validate PTS even more! And I will post results. I find humor in the fact that I already have suitors lined up locally for the blue bench! That is funny to me because it's not going to cost me a thing to do my research!