Small Garage Flowbench Build

[stef-1]

More progress...











So now it's got a counter top for it, wheels and the bleed valve has been trial fitted. If your wondering what the lump of wood is for on the bottom right of the bench it's because I made a small mistake in screwing in a screw that was too long in the area under the large hole on the right. It showed signs of splitting the mdf in that area so I used the wood block, screwed from the side and below to pull it together.
One of the things I've learned with the MDF is that you have to be really careful how you screw it together.
What's left to do now to the case is to paint the inside and fit and wire up the motors.

[UKDoug]

Looking good Stef.

I'm catching you up. Just found a good supplier of silicone RTV for port moulding if you are interested?

[stef-1]

[FPV_GTp]

Hi , nice work Stef , nice idea with the throttle body as a control valve.

cheers

[jfholm]

[jfholm]

Here is some silicone rubber from Smooth On that looks good also. It is a 1:1 by volume and cures faster than the polyurethane - silicone is a little harder to use as sometimes you need to have a vacuum to keep bubbles from forming. If you watch the tech videos on this web site and at Tap Plastics it shows you how to use silicone. urethane is easier as you just mix and pour.



John

[stef-1]

Thanks John for the info.


A bit more progress recently. I got the inside of the case sealed up and painted. I painted the inside of the front and back panels ready for fitting.
I have also installed the motors and test fired them to get the rotation right. I'm suprised at how powerful these little ydk's are.









After getting this far I think I would change a couple of things if I were to do it again. I would increase the height of the bleed chamber to make it easier to paint the inside and I would widen the centres of the soil pipe caps so the motor side one is not directly over one of the motors. I can get the cap off okay, you just have to watch your hand on the sharp edges of the motor.

[stef-1]

Got some more stuff done this weekend. Fitted the baffle plates and wired up the motors. After doing the wiring I test run the beast... what a noise! The red tape on the wiring is just insulation tape to cover exposed terminals on some of the motors and at the junction box.
I also drilled the holes for the pressure tappings and then fitted the rear and front panels. Next I will undercoat the outside and paint it.

[MrHijet]

Sweet!

I see you haven't used MDF everywhere. Where have you used which type of wood ?

I am very interested in how much airflow you will have when using just a single 240V line with these four motors.

Cheers,

Daniel

[stef-1]

I used MDF everywhere except for the baffle plates, which are 1/4" plywood and for the bleed chamber bottom which is 22mm flooring grade chipboard. This was only used because I ran out of MDF.
I'm hoping to have better capacity from my bench than an SF-120 at the least. I did some fiquring out on a spreadsheet which is at the begining of the thread and it should be better than the SF-120. This is just for home use so I'm not overly concered about pulling lots of depression. If I wanted to do that I'd get 3 phase installed and use a proper motor and blower unit

[UKDoug]

Looking good Stef.

So when are we going to have our flow bench day?

[stef-1]

Doug, with several shows/race events coming up and a holiday it's looking like I won't be ready until the third week of June at the earliest. I really want to get it painted this week if I can before things get really busy.

[UKDoug]

Oh well. Gives me time to catch up. I've started glueing and screwing, and have mounted my motors so not too far behind.

It will be interesting to see how close our two benches results are on the same orrifice plate.

What stuff are you going to be working on first with your new bench? Some more vauxhall heads? The LET manifold?

[stef-1]

Doug, I'm interested if we both get the same readings from your plates. Assuming I have no horrible leaks or other teething problems there's no reason why they shouldn't be the same.
I will probably flow anything I can get my hands on at first :p I'm just itching to try it out!

[stef-1]

I finished undercoating the outside and put the first of the top coats on. Now I know it's blue... It was not deliberate... The blue paint was on special offer at a cheapo store I went to :laugh:
Just need a PTS sticker now!