What Was the Most Powerful Car at the Grassroots Motorsports Dyno Day?

In reply to Keith Tanner:

Been meaning to ask what that Jeep looking thing is. It's gotta face like Paris Hilton. Lol.

So, how many people actually use a dyno day to learn something about their car, work on their tune, or assess new mods and that type of thing and how many go there to try to 'win'?

People who go there to 'win' are probably the same people who have truck nuts hanging off the back of their truck. Seems a bit insecure to me.

Keith Tanner wrote: Here's my 39.2 rwhp baby. About 8% the wheel hp of one of my other cars This was a leisurely test.

I have to ask, did it use the ramps or climb up the ladder to get on the dyno?

Trackmouse wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: Been meaning to ask what that Jeep looking thing is. It's gotta face like Paris Hilton. Lol.

What did Keith's Land Rover ever do to you???

I was there, but I didn't put my car on the dyno. The weather was overcast, and I wonder if that scared a lot of people away. It was cool meeting some of the GRM staff, though!

T.J. wrote: So, how many people actually use a dyno day to learn something about their car, work on their tune, or assess new mods and that type of thing and how many go there to try to 'win'? People who go there to 'win' are probably the same people who have truck nuts hanging off the back of their truck. Seems a bit insecure to me.

Generally, people who do the dyno days are just there to have fun and compare peak numbers. Folks who are serious about using the dyno as a tool book dedicated dyno time.

I do product development and research on engine and chassis dynos so officially I'm disdainful of people who use them just to do power pulls and brag about peak power numbers. You'll notice however that I was one of the first to jump on this thread and brag about my car's percentage of power increase. Horsepower is fun!

As fun as it is, horsepower is just one part of what wins races and on tight road courses and autocross tracks it's a small part. One of the fun things about a car like a spec. Miata is beating up on cars with significantly more power.

Exactly. You can't do any dyno tuning at a dyno day, it's just a dick measuring session. Or maybe you can compare to a previous run after some untunable bolt-ons for some slow-motion tuning.

We have a dyno at FM. We don't do dyno days, it's devoted to pure R&D. Actually, we have two.

Keith Tanner wrote: ...it's just a dick measuring session.

From dyno days, to auto racing, to drifting, to stick/ball sports, to the Olympics, to the X-Games, to beauty pagents, to gaming, etc...The goal of any form of contest is to do better than one or more other people, making them all exactly that. It's just a matter of which 'measurement' happens to be most relevant to each individual, such that promoting one over the other is merely a length vs girth argument.

That's the point. It's a contest, not a tuning session (equivalent to practice?).

I'm pretty sure I won the lowest HP category. 140 HP.

Generally, people who do the dyno days are just there to have fun and compare peak numbers. Folks who are serious about using the dyno as a tool book dedicated dyno time.

Hi. I'm Dan, and I run Mach V Motorsports, the host facility for the dyno day event. We do a few dyno days per year. They always sell out, so there's plenty of demand for it. People have all kinds of reasons for doing it. Mostly they are just curious about what kind of power their car makes. Sometime they want to check and make sure their modified car is still performing the same as it was a few years back. We specifically do NOT sell the event as a contest -- we don't give out any trophies, and there are no winners or losers. Everyone who participates is a winner, because they have more knowledge about their car than they did before.

I'd say that most people there are NOT into comparing numbers. I mean, what good is it going to do you to compare your 300-whp Subaru with a 140-whp 39-year-old BMW? Rigging up each car takes a while, so even if you wanted to compare every car there, it would be a big time commitment. (Over the seven hours of the event I think we dyno'ed around 13 cars.) There WERE three Mazdaspeed3 cars there, and they had three concurrent slots, but even those guys had a good idea of what the cars were going to make in advance, and it seemed more like they were just verifying what they already knew.

Compared to some of our other events, attendance was a little lower -- that was on purpose on my part. The only day the GRM crew could make it was on a Sunday, and there's a popular church down at the other end of our building. I didn't want to pull in 200 people only to have them fighting with the church-goers for parking spaces. When we do a Saturday or Friday night event it's usually a bit busier with more spectators.

--Dan

Mach V Motorsports

JBasham wrote: I'm pretty sure I won the lowest HP category. 140 HP.

Nope. The 1991 318is made 119.6 rwhp.

--Dan Mach V

MachVDan wrote:

JBasham wrote: I'm pretty sure I won the lowest HP category. 140 HP.

Nope. The 1991 318is made 119.6 rwhp. --Dan Mach V

Hahaha, and I'm very proud of that 119.6 hp! My '91 318is is rated 134hp at the crank (26 years and 138K miles ago), so i'm pleased with a consistent 119hp and 110tq at the rear wheels across 4 runs.

T.J. wrote: So, how many people actually use a dyno day to learn something about their car, work on their tune, or assess new mods and that type of thing and how many go there to try to 'win'? People who go there to 'win' are probably the same people who have truck nuts hanging off the back of their truck. Seems a bit insecure to me.

Dyno days are fun and a good time to socialize, bench race, and check out some cool cars. Dyno tuning sessions are just that. I do both and think you're missing the point of a dyno day....at least the reason me and my buddies do them.

I took my old 4 door 72 LTD to a dyno day and slapped a gum ball on the roof so it looked like an old detectives car.. It was a blast and I sure didn't take a 150hp car to the dyno for dick measuring.

hummm, I wonder if this could happen for the challenge? Be nice to see it in the magazine write ups

In reply to FlightService:

Based on the number of rods Wreck Racing has put thru various oil pans on various dynos, I'm not sure you want that. It was the best pull of the day up to the rod liberation, though.