This is for Mike or anyone else that knows about dynos

What kind does superchip use?

And what are the different kinds, and how do they work?

I know of water brake, eddy current and electric. Any others

 

Superchips uses eddy-current chassis dynos at their USA & European facilities. Eddy-current chassis dynos give you flexibility, the ability to hold the vehicle at any throttle point or rpm for extremely precise tuning along with accurate compensation of load factoring for varying vehicle weights, something that is critical for accuracy in this field. Automakers use eddy-current chassis dynos for the vast majority of their chassis dyno work, and the most sophisticated units (read: big $$$) made at that, for those same reasons, precision, accuracy, consistency, flexibility etc. & much more.

This will be argued ad nauseum, but the long & short of it is an eddy-current chassis dyno is generally preferable for detailed tuning work. It's also an expensive type of chassis dyno, and not seen in large numbers by "your average guy," so to speak.

The typical dyno you'll find at most shops that have a chassis dyno these days are generally inertia dynos, like Dynojet, just to mention one brand name. They do a great job for their relatively low cost with vehicles that are close to the combined weight of their rollers, about 3600 lbs. Inertia dynos in general do not do well with widely varying vehicle weights, like these F-150's that can easily weigh 2.5-3 tons. They are an excellent tuning tool, as you can get on a Dynojet for very little $$ to get air/fuel ratios for supercharged or heavily modified vehicles, etc. The inertia dyno can be used to good effect for a number of things, you just have to know their basic limitations. A skilled operator can go a long way with one of these.

This is really far too involved a subject to type it out on a message board, and to be honest, I'm not the best person to explain "all of them and how they work." We've spent a lot of time on various engine & chassis dynos over the last too many years, but actually having a detailed knowledge of how they do what they do, their actual mechanics, is really not my field of expertise, the various dyno manufacturers would know that best.

 

I have researched some. And found that the inertia ones are not the best to use. Eddy current and electric are best.

One benifit of electric is that you can use them to power something. Meaning that you can turn the motor off and spin it to find the frictional losses in engines as well other things like braking systems, transmissions etc.

The highest price for a eddy current is $160,000 that I have found. Haven't really found any prices on the electric though.