Ford Dynamometer

J

JAKEFORD

Senior Member
In 1949, according to LIFE magazine, FORD built a brand new Dynamometer building housing 14 "State of the Art" Dynometers.

They tested the Flathead 8ba engines sometimes for 90,000 mile endurance tests.

Look it up on the internet.

Why did they show consitently 100 hp dyno tests? In spite of more recent 80+- testing in recent publications? These were reported as FORD engineering tests.

I would like to know the engineering answer. (Others may also like to know)
 
I read the article fairly quickly, but didn't see anything about engineering dyno charts.
 
That building is a small part of the current Ford Dynamometer Building. It is in the Ford Engineering and Research Center in Dearborn, MI. The entire Engineering Center was completed in 1953. The dyno building must have been one of the first buildings built. The Research Center boarders Oakwood Blvd. in Dearborn, MI basicly across the street from The Henry Ford Museum.
 
As I explained when I wrote about this in my book---one of the many possible explanations is that we will probably never know which or what correction factors and or standards were being used during the Ford tests.
 
I understand there are 2 popular SAE Dynamometer standards for correction factors - one is J607 which is the older and one is J1349, the newer. The J1349 assumes a mechanical efficiency of 85% while there is no mechanical efficiency discount with the J607. This could mean about 15HP difference with the V8. But I don't know if this standard was applicable in 1949-53. There may have been another standard in use.

Any comments?
 
Yes, the "mechanical efficiency" discounts described above do not exist. The difference between the standards are related to atmospheric factors.
 
I think an atmospheric correction of 20% would be extreme, e.g. very high altitude. I only see differences of a few percent at 800 ft elevation (Oklahoma). One of the tricks companies used to play was to remove accessories, fan, generator, pumps, mufflers .... Don't know if that could get you 20%.
 
It's simple ---friction, spin engine up without fuel, note HP to spin,add fuel, measure flywheel HP, add friction HP

just because it doesn't come out of the engine it still makes that horsepower
 
FWIW, here's all the info there is on the procedures from a 1939 239 chart:
Corr. to 29.92" HG at 60 degrees F
carb, manifold, pistons etc. stock, heads used were 81T's with 81-86 cc spec
Spark (advance) set manually to master curve (greatest advance looks about 21-21 degrees)
H-10 plugs
SAE 40 oil
water in at 155 degrees, out at 165
there is a curve shown for mechanical efficiency, which shows as about 87% at 1000 RPM dropping to 67 @ 4,000...(this part of graph is a bit unclear to me, my interpretation may be wrong...too many curves and sets of numbers on one chart!)
At the bottom of chart it says "Above tests made with generator and water pumps but without fan or muffler"
Advertised torque and HP are marked on chart and are shown as below actual numbers

So...that's what Ford had to say.

Obviously the 1949 dynos mentioned are a different generation, and dyno use for "endurance tests" are a different planet than dyno runs made to establish basic specs. These things were used obviously over considerable time, and probably ran the engines repeatedly through some sort of specified load and RPM cycles representing actual driving.
 
If those results for the 39 engine are from the curves on the VanPelt site, I notice that the advertised HP and Torque values are below the curve showing that FORD took the conservative approach in 1939-40 and did not increase the numbers for sales reasons.
 
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