Last winter we had the opportunity to sit in on a conference with Superflow‘s Bret Williamson, who spent much of his seminar discussing proper dyno cell layout and some of the pitfalls dyno operators face during daily operation. What does this have to do with a blown alcohol engine blowing up an exhaust system? Well, one of the items Williamson touched on during his seminar was the importance of building a dyno exhaust system that is large enough to handle the output of any engine the dyno may see during operation.
As we can see in this short video from 1320 Speed & Kustom, the exhaust system in their dyno cell simply wasn’t big enough to handle the monster boost this blown alcohol powerplant puts out under load. Not only does the test barely get started, it’s over almost as quickly as they ramp the throttle in, with a fire that engulfs the wall and nearly the engine during its initial flameout. The exhaust explosion sees the muffler assemblies pull away from the headers and narrowly avert a much larger problem. It’s only through a bit of luck that this didn’t turn out to be worse.
One thing’s for certain – we’ll bet the 1320 guys have a larger exhaust system in place next time they attempt to turn up the wick on this monster. Click the video and watch the big boom!