I nabbed four clips off of YouTube for this week’s videos, all of them showing what can go wrong on a chassis dyno. Many of us here have countless dyno pulls under our belts, and it’s easy to get slack about the disasters that can occur even with low-powered cars.
I was at Westech one day when a driveshaft broke about halfway through a pull and launched out from under the car in two pieces. It took about 20 minutes for the stuff to stop spinning on the floor.
Once I saw an engine-dyno room that was annihilated after a damper came off the front of a stock engine.
The moral of the story is that problems can happen. You should not automatically trust the skills of the car owner or the dyno operator. Check this stuff out. If you only have time for one video, do the first one that shows a 1,000-plus-rwhp car nearly launching off the elevated dyno at the Car Craft Nationals a few years ago. The driver is a major hero for getting on the brakes so quickly.
STRAPS BREAKING AT CAR CRAFT NATS
BROKEN DRIVESHAFT
FUEL EXPLOSION
FALLING OFF THE ROLLERS
