Building a Water Brake

[Dave W]

Got a little time now and I am going to build a engine dyno with a 13" or so water brake. I got a lot of things figured but some are still floating. Most would say just buy this and buy that and you got it. After checking out what it would cost to buy parts and assemble the dyno its not in my budget. Questions I have are.

What type of seals are inside the water brake?

Can you buy a load cell to be compatible with some manufactures software or data equipment?

Is the auto load valve (water) that much of a difference between the manual one, as in accurate or repeatable?

Bruce is there a chance you have Dave Mclains email.
Sent him a PM but dont know if he still visits the site?

Thanks Dave

[49-1183904562]

Dave;

Loadstar has good selection of load cells both USB and analog i would also look into DataQ for some of your data aquisistion needs.

How many Lbft of torque are you looking to measure? the Ladstar 500lb cells run between $400 and $750 depending on your needs.

Rick

[bruce]

Dave, can't share the email address as he has it hidden on the forum but I did send him an email, lets see what we get back.

I have a few 500# "S" style load cells that I could part with :;):

[Dave W]

Thanks bruce for sending info.

I will be looking in the 1000 lbft range for a cell.

Thanks
Dave

[bruce]

I might have one or two in that range. I'll have to look, I purchased some the other year at an auction.

[106-1194218389]

Couldn't you just move the arm from the brake out to 2ft and use the 500# unit to get a thousand pound capacity?
John

[Dave W]

yea but the long arm is going to make things difficult on the build and for room around the unit for the headers.

[106-1194218389]

Could you mount the arm going straight down? Ours was high enough off the ground we had room to do this if we wanted to.

John

[Dave W]

I dont know the water lines and drain will most likely come from the bottom just cause the way i got it figured. How did you calibrate with the arm facing down.

If i make a 13" brake the arm will only stick out 5.5 inches or so. just seems more compact.

[106-1194218389]

We were doing small engines and our dyno was only a 200hp one. From the center line of the brake to the mounting point for the gauge was only 12". When we got 75 hp we were jubilant.
John

[Tony]

Post deleted

[106-1194218389]

[86rocco1]

[Dave W]

Thanks for the feed back. I guess what i am looking for is something digital with the software but would like to hook up load cell, rpm, water, oil. I don't mind buying the software from Land & Sea but all the extra stuff just seems to be over priced.

What does 16 channel, 28 channel, 36 channel mean on the data system.

For the water brake I will be checking on pump seals for the shaft.

John was the impeller on the stuska splined or is there some kind of flange that the impeller bolts to.