today on bluepeter we're going to build... A Flowbench!

[Darkspeed]

There was a discussion on the PTS forum about that re-meltable mould stuff and must admit it looks like useful stuff.

My bench is in build at the moment but with a deadline on getting my car together a finish date of March is looking unlikely but the cabinet should be mostly finished by then - I think for the CFM I will be looking at the 5 motors I have will be more than adequate but I will look out for another to make it an even 6.

I did have a good find at work - a 40" water gauge and the PTS plans guy is making plans available for an inclined manometer to suit the bench so people can get up and running on a budget.

On the Burrs front I am still to get in touch with the supplier in Derby to get some prices on the long shank 6mm carbides.

need to get some casters and deck plates on the next e-bay shopping visit.

Cheers

Andrew

[HairbearTE]

Andrew count me in if you want to bulk buy 6mm long shank burrs for a better price

[Darkspeed]

IT FLOWS

My PTS digital flow bench is up and running and although the fixture jig is a Heath Robinson affair at the moment and its not been fully calibrated it goes and its kid in a sweetshop time.

I have had an old P6 Rover head that I have been playing with on the bench and already discovered some interesting.....stuff

Reading at 28" depression

The stock P6 inlet with valve flowed 120CFM at 9mm lift 10mm lift 11mm lift and bound against the guide

Take the valve out and yep you guessed it 120CFM

At 120CFM at 9mm - I stuck some plasticine putty in the corner of the inlet port like the Merlins - this dropped flow by 2CFM to 118CFM

Its nice to be able to find out practically for yourself that the restrictions in the Rover head are the throats just behind the valve.

A fully modified port without valve but on the stock seat flowed 164CFM

As I have a flow graph from the Peter Burgess book for the RV8 stock and modified I will see how my bench compares.

Well chuffed with it even if at the moment its only running on 3 motors - It has 8 motor capability that will flow 600CFM at 28"

Photo's on there way

Andrew

[mgbv8]

This has made my ears prick up Andrew!!!

MORE!!!!

[Darkspeed]

Well here are the pictures

A pair my modified heads are dropping by tomorrow to be given a comparison against a Vitesse head that I will dig out of the shed tomorrow









Now I have this little tool up and running I intend to have some real fun messing about and modifying the old RV8 to see whats what

The bench is fully loaded and something similar from Superflow would cost a small fortune - especially with the capacity this bench has

Switchable flow to test exhaust as well - two toggle switches and switch the flow plate and the bench flow is reversed to test exhaust flow - no messing about.

The high flow rates available with the bench allows full testing of carbs as well as heads so I am going to carry out a few mods on an old Holley.

Bit more woodwork next week to manufacture a head mounting jig and try and get my hands on a bit of PVC pipe the right diameter for correct bore simulation.

Excited.... you bet

Andrew

[ChrisJC]

Bloody brilliant.

There is no substitute for some scientific experiments to cut through the b*llshit.

Maybe we should tabulate the results, and if people have modded heads to hand, visit Andrew to get them measured too.....

I for one would be interested to see all the standard heads from P5B through to 4.6 Range Rover compared. That might dispel a few myths.

Chris.

[Coops]

if i have to pop the engine out to change the rings Andrews welcome to test my stg3 V8Dev heads if he wants,

[Darkspeed]

I have to hand

P6
Vitesse
Stock 3.9
Stock 4.6
Own Stage 1 3.9
Own Stage 1 4.6

The bench has the capability to flow these heads at up to a 40" depression - I am testing at 16" at the moment and correcting to 28" until I get all the motors and the power supply sorted out.

I already have the graph for the P6 - the software does a data capture and exports to a CSV file - this is imported to Excel and viola graphically presented.

As for if you want some of your own stuff tested - give me a a few weeks to get the fixtures and dial gauges sorted out and I would be glad to.

Looking back to the earlier threads - its taken a bit longer than expected

Bloody brilliant.

There is no substitute for some scientific experiments to cut through the b*llshit.

Maybe we should tabulate the results, and if people have modded heads to hand, visit Andrew to get them measured too.....

I for one would be interested to see all the standard heads from P5B through to 4.6 Range Rover compared. That might dispel a few myths.

Chris.

[Darkspeed]

May have to bribe Hairbear to borrow his rather nice 3.5/3.9 head mounting fixture

Andrew

[HairbearTE]

May have to bribe Hairbear to borrow his rather nice 3.5/3.9 head mounting fixture

Andrew

Well before I got lucky and bought that fixture my plan was to create something similar using a 3.9 liner. What better way to simulate a rover bore than to actually use a rover bore?! Anyway since im not going to use the liner i'll send it on to you if you pm me your address. I also have a stage 3 rover head and a pair of buick 300 heads (albeit without valve seats at the mo), so if you fancy a day head testing in the new year sometime I'd love to come up and see your bench in action.

[HairbearTE]

Also if you need any heads to practice on let me know, I'm moving soon and reducing my junk collection somewhat might be a good idea. I think I got about 30 heads but most are old 3.5 stuff, some 0216 castings but mainly old LR or P5/P6 castings.

[topcatcustom]

Wow that looks great Andrew- how about using a cvlinder liner to make the mounting fixture from? Or do you need it to be transparent?

[Darkspeed]

A PM on its way - and you would be more than welcome to come up and spend the day messing about with the bench - I will probably have ordered up a copy of Flowsoft excel software in the mean time so will have even more features to get my head around.

I made myself a simple little calibration plate today to see where the bench calibration was and the figures I achieved were within 1.3% of the expected figure which I was chuffed to bits with.

Also had a play with a bit of string on the end of a welding rod to see what happens with air flow in the port and I now have to get some polystyrene beads to thread onto fishing line to check port flow just a couple of the flow tricks that I have found - Port mapping using a Pitot tube is also a function the bench and digital manometer and software has but the Pitot tubes are £75 a time so will put them on the wish list or have a go at manufacturing one myself.

If you fancy removing some of that "junk" to storage in Shropshire there is plenty of space.

All the best

Andrew

Well before I got lucky and bought that fixture my plan was to create something similar using a 3.9 liner. What better way to simulate a rover bore than to actually use a rover bore?! Anyway since im not going to use the liner i'll send it on to you if you pm me your address. I also have a stage 3 rover head and a pair of buick 300 heads (albeit without valve seats at the mo), so if you fancy a day head testing in the new year sometime I'd love to come up and see your bench in action.

[ChrisJC]

Stock 3.9
Stock 4.6

This will be interesting, as I expect them to be identical......

Chris.

[kiwi303]

Would be interesting to see what the difference between a stock 3.5 mid/late 70's P6B and a stock mid 80's LR head is. I got a pair of '80s LR heads to replace the P6 ones on my P6 lump.