um, Rad!!!

 

Ok, bought my cheapie welder and about to put this thing together.
I researched youtube and saw everything from $1000 engine run stands to a guy running his engine off a $25 engine mini stand.

I'm going to use my current Harbor Freight engine stand and fab up a V frame that ties the motor mounts to the center horizontal support. The support is designed to be easily removed and can be used on small and big-blocks. Yes, I measured and the V doesnt hit the oil pan. I will post pics once the welding is done.

Here's my not-to-scale drawing:

 

I used to just run them on the garage floor. A couple wooden blocks to brace the engine and a pad under the oil pan. Not nearly as pretty as a $1,000 fabricated stand but I don't think the engines knew the difference. Now, I don't even bother. I run an engine in the chassis. If it has to come out again, oh well.

 

Really a waste of time IMHO especially with a roller motor, put it in the car, fire it up, look for leaks, check the timing and take it out for a spin and seat the rings. Last two motors in mine were up to near 5,000RPM within minutes of first fire

 

Thats exactly what mine looks like,it works great

 

Here's another idea:

http://charlotte.craigslist.org/pts/1939146627.html

 

could you take this

http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/80065/10002/-1

and beef it up and use it as a run stand??

 

Yes, there's a guy in YouTube that used one of these cheapy stands....and it works.

The only bad thing is that the engine is near the ground which means you have to bend down to tune it and use the water hose method since the radiator may not mate up.

 

so u mean to say that you can run a motor off a regular stand such as this one??
http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/80040/10002/-1

 

Hee hee, yes, it is not pretty but does work.

Check this guy out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41GTBz_SPrY

 

One caveat: don't get too excitied about firing off 2 years of hard work and forget to remove your ratchet from the harmonic balancer bolt (trick ARP part.)

Here you go:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99VH2tQGXx4

 

DO NOT use a three leg stand for anything. They are unstable.

 

If there isn't an engine dyno in your area, I agree with trying to run the motor outside the car. If there is an engine dyno around though, it would be much better to run the motor under load and get some kind of tune on it over just firing it up to check for leaks and such.

 

Test stand won't put proper load/heat on cylinder parts to help much with ring seal (especially with total loss water cooling like my friend's stand has) but, will allow you to spot early problems like oil leaks and any other glitches that are a PITA do do in a Vette. I ran my LT-1 outside of our Vette because the 70 has the nicest paint of all my Vettes and I didn't want to take a risk of scratching fenders. Motor was tight as a drum with no oil leaks probably only because it was completley checked out ahead of final installation into Vette (plus, I put the cylinder heads into Bridgeport mill and made valve cover gasket surfaces flat!)

I also tore down top end of this build to look at all the lifters to make sure wear patterns were developing well after break-in of cam even though I used Joe Gibbs Racing "BR" break-in motor oil on the start-up. The last thing I wanted to have happen is a cam failure in my wife's 70 LT-1, I would have never heard the end of that one from her. Motor has about 4K miles on it right now and valve lash has been checked twice with good clearances being evident so far (who says you need a roller cam?)

In my area, a good engine dyno session runs about $750 to $1000 so, unless you doing testing of parts, it probably isn't worth while to go that route, I will be doing that with my "bullet" for my 72 LT-1

 

The dark side
Years ago my room mate acquired an engine test stand to do the 20 minute break in runs

Big radiator and electric fans, battery, tach, oil pressure,...... We used it once. You have all the man hours of putting it on and off the test stand when you could have just put it in the vehicle anyway. Lars has it down to less than an hour. If you were a shop building and repair or selling motors I could see it.

Where I work we use the engine dyno with a 25% load for motor breakins before installing or shipping them. Unless it is getting the whole dyno tune with print outs

 

Damn good advice there. They're not very stable with a small, dead engine on 'em. I wouldn't even think about using one of those tricycle stands to build something that would hold a running engine.