Tower of Power - Everything a bench should be...

[Mouse]

[Jesse Lackman]

John, you are getting this thing tweaked to utter perfection, I think this is the nicest stand alone flow bench design out there.

[Terry Again]

Hi I wonder how much this cost you? I want to build one just to see IF I can port to help my Turbo Dodge heads flow more! And I have limited funds due to being disabled for brain damage!! Can you say POOR!! ??? I figure I can just use manometers and need about 200 to 500 cfm at 28"? Just wondering how much for the wood and what types? For now?
Thanks for a reply,
Terry

[bruce]

If you do the re"search" and follow the info on this forum, find some old vacuum's and steal the motors, some clear tubing, maybe some PVC pipe from the hardware store and some other odds and ends ...... you can build a bench for less than a couple hundred dollars if not alot lower?

[Thomas Vaught]

I agree with Bruce on that deal:

I saw the famous Head Porter CJ Batten's "professional"
flow benches one time.

This is what he had in a fancy drywall "Island" enclosure around each one (3 benches).

On the front wall he had a bench shelf that would support
the weight of the head or part he was testing. His "bore adaptor"
was mounted on that shelf (just like a Super Flow bench piece is
mounted).

Attached to the front wall he had a very nice Meriam inclined manometer
like the one here: http://www.meriam.com/products/default. ... &d=84&p=51

The deal is you could make a similar piece that would be very accurate
using the spreadsheet from the board.

As far as the "settling chamber" he used a 55 gallon steel oil drum with a opening at the top to let the air in and a nipple on the side to pull the air from the drum.

He used orifice plates (mounted in flanges) attached to PCV tubes like these: http://www.meriam.com/products/default. ... &d=62&p=13

These "flow elements" were set up for a given range of flow like 100 cfm, 200 cfm, 300 cfm, etc He had three flow tubes as at that time there were few cylinder heads flowing over 300 cfm. You could easily dumplcate these flow orifices using Bruce's sharp edged orifice plates and some flanges and PCV tubing.

The "power supply" for the air flow was a Paxton industrial supercharger which at the time had limited flow so it could easily do a 300 cfm head. The flow of the system was controlled by a butterfly on the exhaust of the blower (just like the old Hot Rod Article by Jim McFarland wrote about many many years ago). The electric motor was a 5 hp 220 volt unit and belt drove the supercharger. Buddy Morrison of Reher/ Morrison/ Shepard
had a similar blower set-up (which I later owned) but that blower motor used a 7.5 hp motor. You could use the surplus 1234 vacuum motors instead of the paxton blower.

So finally, to make a flow bench using acquired parts would not be that difficult if you read the board posts and had some fabrication skills.

JMO

Tom V.