Plans for Building an Engine Test Stand

[LowchevyII]

Like the title says, Im looking for plans or any help building an engine test stand. I was toying with the idea of buying an engine stand for when i pull my motor but then i said why not a test stand. Well ill tell you why not, becuase the cheapest i found was 700 bucks onward and upward to 2000. so needless to say, out of my budget.

So my request to anyone here: Do you guys have any plans for building one or good images i can base mine off of?

Thanks in advance

Jeff

[ccm399]

Are you planning on running multiple types of engines or just one family?

How are you planning on running the engine, complete with accessories or just a Water Pump?

I don't have any plans but the easiest way would be to get an old bell housing and make some brackets to bolt to the tranny bolts, that will handle the back. For the front you can either fab up a mount for the side mounts or just bolt onto some of the front bolt holes in the block.

Hope this helps (a little at least).

Chris

[LowchevyII]

definitely a start. i would probably only need it to run chevy stuff but with full accessories up front. I appreciate the answer. the bellhousing part was what i was a little confused on. was unsure how to support the rear of the engine, and low and behold you got me the answer.

thanks again man, i appreciate your time

jeff

[ccm399]

No problem!

Since you want to run accessories I would suggest picking up a old set of Chevy side mounts and then you could make a simple system to use the cross bolts through the stock mounts. You would be able to mount SBC and BBC on the same stands without moving them.

Here's a couple pics of a dyno stand we built.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p302/ccm399/DCP_1532.jpg

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p302/ccm399/DCP_1536cropped.jpg

The first pics shows you an overall type of view the second gives you a little more detail. the multiple holes in the rail allow for front to back and side to side movement. The uprights are two piece adjustable the inner tube has a threaded insert with a stainless threaded rod in it to allow the from jacks to grab pretty much any place I needed. To make it a stand alone deal you would need to make the cart a little longer to mount the bell housing to. Our stand used a "mid plate" to mount the rear of the motor. The dyno had its own starter so being able to mount a starter on the bell housing was not a concern.

If you built something like this you could mount pretty much any engine to it.

I so not have the dimensions we used though.... sorry. That's a BBC for reference though.

Chris

[ccm399]

Ok, I have been trying to remember some of the dimensions for you. Here is what I have.

The tubing is 2x2 the top rail on the cart is 24" off the floor with a 36" crank center line (I'm 6'6" tall). I am fairly sure the cart was 36" long. The slots are about 3" long. The bolts through the rails are 1/2". I am fairly certain the cross bar is about 40" but you would only need it to be this wide if you planned to use a front plate for mounting (like the engine in the picture).

Chris

[LowchevyII]

man that is a good lookin stand, again, i appreciate your time spent posting the pics and info. If its not too much of a stretch, would you happen to have any rear pictures of it? no biggy if not, youve done quite a bit as it is


thanks!

jeff

[MarkM66]

Check over on chevelles.com , there are a bunch of good post about it.

[LowchevyII]

Check over on chevelles.com , there are a bunch of good post about it.

thanks! ill go check that out

--Jeff

[ccm399]

man that is a good lookin stand, again, i appreciate your time spent posting the pics and info. If its not too much of a stretch, would you happen to have any rear pictures of it? no biggy if not, youve done quite a bit as it is


thanks!

jeff

Unfortunately I do not have any rear pics. Although the rear would not be very useful as I used a "mid plate" to mount the rear of the motor not a bell housing. If I were doing it I would get a 1/4" thick plate of steel a little bigger than the tranny mount on the bell housing (guessing I would say 12" wide and maybe 14-16" tall should more than do it). This would allow you to drill different holes if you needed to mount different housing to it.

Chris

[LowchevyII]

no sweat, thank you for the info, i really appreciate it. thanks again to everyone also for responding. keep teh good info coming