Clear head adapter...

[What]

What are the benefits of having a clear cylinder for a cylinder head adapter? Is there something you will actually see or is it simply a custom thing to do.

[Greg]

The main benefit is that it is easy to mount a head on the adapter because you can see through it to line up your chamber over the bore. A specific adapter for each head type you use that locates using the head dowel holes would be better but if you do a lot of different heads that means a lot of adapters. Mondello make slider setups for specific heads that make it simple to mount each chamber over the bore of the flowbench but these are head specific. If you have a head you do a lot it would probably be worth setting something like this up.

Another benefit of perspex/plexiglass/acrylic is that its dead easy to machine and can be glued together.

I am about to start making mine but am using perspex for the main body of it and trying to set it up to use removeable bores that can just be slipped in to one universal adapter, I think i will be using thick wall PVC as its cheaper and available in a heap of different sizes. To buy the clear pipe I would have to buy a full length which means about $180 for 6'.

I think a rubber o-ring would work well to seal the adapter to the bench and the head to the adapter.

[98-1074649673]

I agree with the easy of machinability on PVC its great to work with from a machinist perspective. I started using it for all my prototyping work on parts I am flowing. The ability to glue a larger peice to a smaller peice is a great benefit on something that has a flange much larger than the body outside dia. Don't have to turn a peice of 3" down to 2" and have all that waste or what ever size u might be working with. Since I don't have TIG welder to weld alum yet PVC is the next best thing.

Here in the States u can buy short sections of clear PVC from McMaster Carr, its still expensive. If I had the time I'd get into making some adaptors to sell. I'll put that on my list of projects to do sometime.

I like the idea of one universal adaptor with removable inserts for various cylinders. This was discussed in another post on this forum if I recall . . .

[Mouse]

If you tape threads to the sides you will be very surprised to see which way the air is flowing along the walls. Cylinder filling dynamics.

[What]

Thanks for the replies. I will be doing very few heads (mostly one type that I have excess of) so I will stick to more of a fixed system for the time being. The price of the clear pipe was all you had to mention.