Engine test stand?????

[Mr. Duece]

I'm interested in buying an engine test stand. The type of stand that I can use to break in, check, and tune my engines before installation. Any recomendation's or experience's would help. Thanks, Don

[bad1racing]

Don,I test fired all of our motors on a Snap-on 4 leg engine stand.Ran a 468BB on it,no problem until my brother wound it up and blew the plug out of the dipstick hole and splashed oil on the headers. Hooked up water,battery,fuel,exhaust,oil press gauge,fire it up.A little primitive but it did everything we wanted to do.
Kendall

[moparts]

I took a engine storage stand, added 4 wheels and a oil pressure gauge. It was good enough to test the 1st engine for the funny car.

[djunod]

Back when I was a kid I made an engine stand out of 2x4's and ran the 350 out of my '70 Camaro on it... I had just completely rebuilt the engine by myself and wanted to make sure that it worked before installing it back into the car. No problems at all.

Recently I saw a stand, made out of steel that even had the mounting for a transmission, so that they could "load it up", and a radiator. It was home-made. Easy to make such things with just the steel that Lowes (or Home Depot) sells.

[budnate]

do any of you guys recall the cheasy bolt together ones that were the rage in the late 80's???? could be had for a few bones in Super Chevy and Hot Rod magzines...

I built from scratch took a few hours there pretty cool, I run all my stuff on it and do all tweeking and cam break in out of the car makes for a nice install motor dialed and wiped down before it hits the frame...I looked today and did not hit any on a google search , plenty of airplane run stands though...they must be around somewhere with all the other cheasy metal stuff...

[55chevy]

Here's mine. I built it out of chevy bumper jack shafts and some swingset tubing. The chrome square tube frame ends are from an Ames Dept store clothing rack. I built it about 10 years ago. I built it bolt a chevy into it with a 4spd bellhousing and stock (block side) engine mounts. It's still not done. I want to clean it up a bunch and redo the mount setup so it will be universal and bolt up to an Olds, Chevy or whatever else I decide to throw on it, and I'm going to put a real instrument panel on it along with ignition switch, throttle..etc. . I've go a 71 Chevelle fuse block on it to spark everything at once (guages/engine..etc). This is one of the greatest tools I've made for myself. I use it for the inital run to break in the cam and check for problems and leaks..etc. It has proven it's worth no doubt. These are the most recent pics of it with the Engine that is now in my current Nova. I didn't have a 4spd bell to use so I just bolted up the TH350 without a converter and blocked up the tail shaft so the flywheel wouldn't hit the framework. It's lightweight, rolls very easily and nice even fully loaded with an engine and it's a hell of alot stronger than it looks. It's not bulky and looks half decent and I can put it anywhere I want to run the engine. I can mount a radiator on it and exhaust and it's just like it would be in the car, except you don't have to screw around with the "car" in your way