A serious dyno cell is more than an absorber bolted to the floor. The chassis has to locate the engine cart precisely, hold the intended driveshaft misalignment, and survive years of torque reaction without wearing out the docking points. That is why we built this chassis around accurate fixturing, replaceable steel pins, and heavy floor anchoring instead of treating it like generic shop fabrication. The same thinking carries into the cooling system and electrical side. The cooling tower, tank, pumps, conduit, and grounding all have to work together without adding heat, vibration, or electrical noise that can affect the test. We isolated the tank from pump vibration, built the water system for long service life, and tightened up the grounding so the facility stays out of the measurement. That is the whole point: when we test, we do not want the test facility influencing the result.
The video opens with a progress update on a major dyno-cell rebuild. Work is happening on several fronts at once: pump mounts for the cooling-tower water pumps, the cooling-tower structure itself, the dyno chassis, and a terminal cabinet that will carry much of the system's control and instrumentation. Additional emissions equipment from AVL is still to be installed.
During the rebuild, the team also discovered that the cell floor had reached the end of its service life. Although the walls had been addressed previously, the epoxy floor had been in place for roughly 20 years and now needs replacement. That decision forces some recently positioned equipment to come back out again so the floor can be redone properly. At the same time, conduit runs and cable pulls are underway, and the electrical grounding is being improved with a fresh ground rod to reduce noise in the electronics.
Attention then shifts to the completed dyno chassis. The chassis continues a Banks system developed years earlier in which an engine is assembled on an engine cart and then docked to the dyno chassis in a repeatable, precise position. The goal is to align the engine and absorber correctly while intentionally maintaining the proper driveshaft misalignment, targeted at about 1.5 degrees at each end.
The chassis geometry was verified with a Romer arm during fabrication, and the finished weldment was held within 0.010 inch. That level of accuracy is emphasized as unusually tight for a welded structure. The absorber mounts directly to this chassis, and the entire arrangement is designed so the engine cart and dyno interface consistently and predictably.
A key feature of the chassis is its docking-pin system. Steel pins locate the mating components through three bores in the chassis. These pins are now replaceable, a change driven by experience in Banks Tech, where three other dynos have reportedly processed more than 10,000 engines while running all day, every day. In that environment, the original steel pins eventually wore out, so serviceability became a design requirement.
The updated pin design uses a counterbored arrangement that aligns the rear of the pin. Once installed, the pin surface sits flush with the surrounding face, and a washer and bolt retain it after torquing. A third pin has also been added to create a triangulated locating system. That change is intended to better manage the torque reaction between the engine and the dyno. Because the torque reaction is transmitted through the prop shaft, the engine naturally wants to rotate around that shaft axis. The triangulated pin layout is presented as a more stable way to control that tendency when the engine cart and dyno chassis are mated together.
The absorber itself is shown next. This is the dynamometer unit that receives power through its input flange. Protective dust covers remain installed until final assembly. The torque-measuring element, described as a strain-gauge load cell, is housed inside a protective enclosure on the absorber.
The absorber bolts to the chassis using long fasteners sized to pass through the mounting plate and still provide enough thread engagement for nuts and washers. Temporary and final bolts were discussed because the team also needs to rig and place the absorber with a boom arrangement on a forklift. The forklift will remain out of sight while the boom extends into the room to position the absorber accurately.
Once installed, the chassis will be secured to the concrete floor with eight anchor points. The absorber also has water inlets and outlets for load water, and that water source comes from the cooling-tower system being built across the street.
The cooling tower is described as a substantial fabrication in its own right. Its supporting framework and base were designed in-house, and the assembly is large and heavy enough that a crane was required to place it on top of the tank structure. The water tank has a total volume of 1,600 gallons, with 1,300 gallons at the normal fill level.
A fill port and float valve control the operating level. The tank also includes two bungs for approximately four-foot-long heaters, intended for freeze protection during unusually cold California weather. The active water inventory is therefore 1,300 gallons, with provisions to keep that water from freezing if necessary.
The cooling tower itself sits above the tank. Once fully assembled, the tower will stand about 18 feet high: roughly 14 feet as shown, plus another 4 feet for the top chimney section.
The tank is divided into hot and cold sections. Return water enters the hot side through two ports. From there, hot water exits through a valved outlet and is sent by a single pump up through piping and into the top of the cooling tower. After passing through the evaporative cooling section, the cooled water drains into a collection pan about 8 inches deep. That pan and the tank are stainless steel, a material choice made specifically for long service life, with the stated goal of 20 to 30 years.
Cold water leaves the pan through an 8-inch outlet and returns to the cold side of the tank through a round opening at the top. The dividing wall between the hot and cold sections includes equalizer ports so the water level can balance somewhat as pump operation and flow rates change. This is important because the system uses gravity return through 8-inch PVC piping, laid out with a constant fall of about 1/8 inch per foot from the absorber rooms or absorber locations back to the tank bungs.
The facility uses two separate water systems for Dyno 1 and Dyno 2, even though both share the common cooling tower. Each has its own outlet and return path. The 8-inch return system is intended to handle all water use in the facility, including charge-air-cooler cooling, engine cooling, oil-cooler cooling, jacket-water cooling, and the dynamometer load water. The objective is to supply all of those circuits with the coldest water achievable from this type of system.
The cooling method is explicitly identified as evaporative rather than refrigerated. That distinction matters because the system's achievable water temperature depends on ambient conditions and evaporative performance rather than mechanical refrigeration.
To support airflow through the tower enclosure, doors will be fitted to keep out leaves, dust, and debris, but the structure is also vented deliberately. Low louvers on one side admit cooler air, while high louvers on the opposite side allow hot air to escape. The top chimney section completes that airflow path and contributes to the tower's final 18-foot height.
The floor anchoring system is also shown in detail. The anchors are reduced and knurled near the embedded section. Installation involves boring the concrete slab, filling the hole with epoxy, and inserting the anchor until it sits flush. The expectation is that once the epoxy cures, the bond strength will be extremely high, to the point that the concrete would likely fail before the epoxy bond does.
The loading on these anchors is described primarily as shear rather than pullout. Because the shaft centerline is above floor level, the dyno assembly tends to rotate around the shaft axis during operation. That means the floor anchors mainly resist the assembly trying to swing, rather than trying to lift out of the slab. Although four anchors might theoretically be sufficient, the design uses eight for margin.
Another notable detail is vibration isolation between the tank and the pump system. Rubber stripping, identified as an EPDM-type material that does not absorb water, is used to isolate the tank. Similar isolation is planned at the outlets as well. The purpose is to prevent pump vibration from being transmitted into the tank structure over years of operation.
That isolation strategy reflects the broader engineering philosophy described throughout the update. The facility is being designed, analyzed, and specified internally rather than handed off to an outside contractor for a generic installation. Stress analysis, flow requirements, electrical work, structural details, and serviceability are all being handled as part of the same in-house effort. The stated reason is straightforward: when testing engines, the test facility itself must not influence the test. The rebuild is therefore being approached with the same rigor applied to the products and engines being evaluated.