Buying a Used Dyno. What You Should Know.

Because Go Power dynos are built to last, many out there still offer decades of reliable service. We often get questions about used Go Power water brakes appearing for sale on various sites.

Listen as Mike Golda and Terry O'Connell run through all the things to consider when considering purchasing a used water brake dyno. They will be speaking about Go Power dynos primarily but all of these points apply to buying any used water brake dynamometer.

Call us if you are considering the purchase or have already purchased a used dyno—we may be able to provide some advice. If you are considering an older Go Power and need some documentation, always check our Go Power website.  At the very bottom of each web page, we list various older models with links to further information. 

Thank you for listening! If there's an engine testing topic you'd like us to cover in future episodes, or you'd like to be a guest on dyno INSITES, please email podcast@froudedyno.com.

Visit Froude's website for more information on dynamometer test systems.

Transcript

Mike Golda 

Welcome to Dyno Insites. Today we're going to talk about buying used Dynos with Terry O'Connell. Terry takes a lot of these calls at Froude with callers asking about used go power water brake dynos, but much of what we are going to talk about applies to all used Dynos. Welcome, Terry. 

Terry O’Connell:

Hi, Mike. How you doing? 

Mike Golda:

Good, how are you?

Terry O’Connell: 

 Not too bad. 

Mike Golda:

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Froude. 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, Mike, I've worked here for about five years. I work in inside sales so I support the sales guys as well as I take a lot of phone calls from customers looking for spare parts. Customers have questions about service on their equipment and just general sales help. 

Mike Golda:

So what are some of the important things to dive into this right now--What are some of the important things for a buyer to know about buying a used Dyno? 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, I'd say the most important thing is that the people understand if the Dyno that they're looking at actually fits their applications. The Dynos aren't a one size fits all product. 

Mike Golda:

Right. Can you give me an example of some of the applications that you're referring to? 

Terry O’Connell:

Sure. We make Dynos for small engines, for regular gas engines, for diesel engines, and they're not cross-compatible. 

Mike Golda:

Okay. So understanding its history is one thing. What are the other some of the things from an application perspective that we're looking for? 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, understanding the history of it, if the person selling it can tell you what they've been running on their Dyno, that can be a big help. Because even if they don't know the technical specs of the Dyno, if they're running a Volkswagen engine on it, you kind of understand it's going to be in a certain horsepower range. So it'll kind of help you guide you on whether it work for you. 

Mike Golda:

Okay. I'm sure that you don't get a lot of information with it, typically with a used dynamometer. But what are some of the other documentation you'd be looking for? 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, for all the Go power units, we can supply duty curves for even the oldest for even the very first Dynos that we built. We still have on file all the duty curves that will show you specifically what range it's designed to run in. 

Mike Golda:

How do you get it? Is it online? Do you make a phone call? What's the best way to get a curve on one of our products? 

Terry O’Connell

That's a good question, Mike. We do have a lot of this information online on our website, but if you have questions, always feel free to call us. We're here to help. 

Mike Golda:

Okay, so you talked about does it fit your application, understanding its history, the duty curve, the types of documentation? What else is there? 

Terry O’Connell:

So, some of the things you should think about once you determine that the Dyno is the right model for you are things like, was the Dyno stored properly. When was the last time it was in service? Does it rotate freely on the shaft? If it's bound up, that can be a sign of some serious internal problems. Some of the older Dynos that we sell, the older Go power units, spare parts availability are limited, so that could be an issue. Another key thing is understanding the water requirements needed for the Dynos. 

Mike Golda:

What do you mean by that? 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, it's pretty misunderstood. A lot of people think that you can just plug a garden hose into most Dynos and run it, but it takes a substantial amount of water to run that Dyno. Our biggest gas unit, the 557 at max, needs about 90 gallons a minute at 60 PSI. 

Mike Golda:

That's a lot of water. 

Terry O’Connell:

Yeah, it is. But on the other hand, our smallest unit, the D 100, you can run off a garden hose. It will run off five gallons a minute at 30 PSI. The small unit only runs up to 100 HP, so not many applications out there. 

Mike Golda:

Got you. So just talking about the water aspect of it. So you're spending I'll shoot from the hip and say, okay, you're spending $5,000 for a used dynamometer. It could cost you more than that amount just to provide all the necessary equipment around it to run it, then.

Terry O'Connell [00:03:50]:

Absolutely. That's a good point, Mike, because you need a lot of other ancillary equipment to go with it. Depending on how you're going to run the Dyno, you may want to use a test stand to mount the Dyno in to make it easier for you. You need a water system, which may include a water tank, which could be depending on how much you're going to run the Dyno could be 250 gallons. You need a booster pump to get the pressure up. You need a valving system to control the load on the Dyno. Some sort of data acquisition or display unit to actually monitor what's going on with the engine. So, yeah, there's a lot of other equipment that goes into it. 

Mike Golda:

So, needless to say, you need more than just the dynamometer. So don't let the price tag get you excited of just the dynamometer, because you know you're going to need other equipment. You're going to need to spend more money than just what you're paying for the dynamometer.

Terry O'Connell:

Exactly.

Mike Golda: 

So, backing up a little bit to earlier in our conversation, and it's weighing on my brain now, when we talked about, does it spin? So let's say it does spin. You may or may not be able to see the inner workings, but if you can, the visual inspection obviously says a lot and it's difficult with pictures. Right. So you may request additional pictures if you can't see certain things, such as the condition of the spinning components within it, like the rotor. But what would you be looking at. If you could see it, what would you be looking for? That would be warning signs to say, oh, that may be a problem. 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, and we do tell people if it's available and they have access to a borescope to go in and check the rotor condition. What you want to look for is mineral build up on the rotor, which will be an indication that maybe running too hot or actual physical damage where it was running too hot and there’s cavitation. 

Mike Golda: 

So, basically, what you're saying is we're looking at erosion in one shape or form over another.

Terry O'Connell [00:05:31]:

Exactly.

Mike Golda [00:05:32]:

Material missing from the rotor, the stator or whatever material you're looking at.

Terry O'Connell [00:05:37]:

Exactly.

Mike Golda [00:05:38]:

They can send us the pictures, and we can tell them what we see because they probably might not know. And that's a very good point, Terry, because being that we are the designers of it, we would be able to look at it and see just by the pictures probably more than the average consumer would be able to tell. Correct? Yeah. So that would be good. So you give a call, and we would probably say, if there weren't enough, we'd probably say we need more pictures. And I would focus on these areas. I think a boroscope is a great idea. So, what are the most common scenarios you come across with go power units that come up for sale?

Terry O’Connell:

 I'd say the most common scenario are people looking at the older go power units that have the hydraulic load cells. That's kind of our dividing line. All the new units we make now have electronic strain gauges. The hydraulic ones, we don't necessarily have the parts for the older ones, all the parts. So I kind of warn people going into that if the Dyno is working good and they see it work and everything's running properly, there's not a lot of risk there. But if it's not been used in a long time, parts might be an issue. 

Mike Golda:

So how are you able to help them understand what they have? First, is it a go power dynamometer. Then second, what model or vintage it is. What information do you typically ask for or need to be able to help them? 

Terry O’Connell:

The biggest thing that will help me identify it would be a picture of the data plate that's on it that will give the model number and the serial number. And believe it or not, we keep build records on these things going back for decades. So we can tell a lot if we get a build plate. And unfortunately, the build plates are generally knocked off on the older ones.

Mike Golda:

 So then it comes back to, if we can get a picture of the Dyno, we generally can identify it and go from there. Are there common older models that you get questions about? 

Terry O’Connell:

Yeah, by far the most common one I get calls on are the old D series. Those are the old gas units for gas engines. Occasionally, I'll get a dy7d call- that's the old small engine, but primarily the D series, the d57. 

Mike Golda:

So some of these older models, we no longer produce parts for. We still support them in whatever way we can. But what can we do if there are no parts available? 

Terry O’Connell:

Well, the rubber diaphragms for the old hydraulic load cell units are not available. We can't support that, but we are working on a solution for that. We are working on a strain gauge upgrade to it. We've got a prototype. And yeah, if someone out there has an old one that wants to convert, call us and we can walk it through them with them. We try and help them. The great thing about go power is we've got all the old prints to make a one-off part, and make a one-off rotor for a machine that's 50 years old probably wouldn't be cost-effective, but we can supply parts. 

Mike Golda:

So out of all the phone calls that you've received, Terry, you've had to had some interesting calls.

Terry O’Connell:

 I actually have gotten a lot of calls in the past of people who are like, my idols in the hot rod industry, different companies. The most recent one, I got a call from a gentleman who currently owns a Dyno that was a 552 model Dyno that he bought from Vic Edelbrock Enterprises. And he was rebuilding it and he's still using it, and he was trying to find shaft bearings. It almost was like a one off unit that we built because that unusual shaft bearing. So we had a data plate. So I was able to find the actual build prints from the original build on it, and I gave him all the information on the bearings, so he was all set. We got him back up and running. But he told me that Vic bought this machine back in the 70s wow. Using it for testing prototype parts, and then he ended up buying it directly from Vic. 

Mike Golda:

That's cool. 

Terry O’Connell:

Yeah, I thought that was really cool. I wish I could get my hands on that. If you only think of the things that Dyno has seen. 

Mike Golda:

What it's contributed to in the development of the Edelbrock product. That's cool. So why do you think there are so many go powers out? 

Terry O’Connell:

Boy, they're built like tanks. They just seem to last forever. I mean, we made them in the USA from day one, and we still do. And it's just a high-quality machine that just keeps running. 

Mike Golda:

Well, I know there's probably a ton more questions that the listeners have, and I know that you get these every day, Terry, so the best path is hopefully this gave a good primer to everybody, at least if they're thinking about buying a used dynamometer. Thanks, Terry. Appreciate your time. I'm sure you helped out a bunch of people that are considering buying a new dynamometer. And that's it for this podcast. Thanks for joining. 

Diane Nossal:

Thank you for listening to dyno INSITES present by Froude. If there are any engine testing topics you would like us to discuss, we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at podcast@froudedyno.com.