This tool measures the amount of air that flows through engine components. Or, does it? The flowbench has been an automotive industry standard for over 50 years. While engines and our understanding of airflow have evolved, the flowbench remains relatively unchanged. Measuring airflow by CFM (cubic feet per minute) alone was good enough for most people in the 1960s. But with today's turbos, superchargers and MAF (mass airflow) sensors, the flowbench is in need of an update.

In this episode of Entry Level, Banks' Special Projects Lead Erik Reider explains the function of a flowbench and its uses. This leads to the problem of evaluating air by volume instead of mass, and the inaccuracy of ratiometric measurements. Finally, he shows how to hot-rod a flowbench to get accurate and relevant readings that correlate with readings from parts tested on an engine.

All sensor data on our modified flowbench is recorded at 20 samples per second using a Banks iDash DataMonster.
https://bnks.pw/idash

00:00 Intro
01:02 Properties of air and airflow
02:36 Air has weight
04:32 What’s a flowbench?
06:51 Measuring with a known orifice
07:40 Ratiometric measurement
08:41 MAF is better than CFM
09:34 Fixing the flow bench
11:53 Outro

#mechanicalengineering #engineering #automotive