It's a new year and time for some changes. One thing we've long considered is the appearance of our dyno charts. We're asking for your feedback because ultimately it's the readers that look at the charts and have to make head or tail of the figures we reach on the dyno.
Our charts are not the conventional scan or reprint of what appears on the screens of just about every dyno computer. Instead, we've traditionally chosen to export the numbers and transfer them into Excel for some post-processing. That gets transferred into illustration/graphing software, where we plot out everything so it's accurate and pretty at the same time. It's fairly time consuming, but on rare occasions, it allows us to clean up spots where the dyno didn't pick up the rpm.
Graphing each pull on independent software also allows us to accurately control the size and appearance of our charts, which is why they are always on the same scale. Long ago, the idea was to use the same size charts each time, so that readers can take examples from different issues or pages, put them side by side and be able to make comparisons. Each chart started at zero horsepower and stretched as high as the page allowed and always spanned between 2000rpm and 8000rpm. It was a good idea back when 200 wheel-hp was a big deal and the only time you'd see 8000rpm was just before you saw a rod come out the side of the engine block.
But as cars made more and more power, we were stuck with changing the vertical scale in order to maintain the same proportions. By the time we started seeing 500 wheel-hp, the bottom of the chart started at 125 horsepower just so it would fit into one page and be in the same proportion as the others. They also started looking peaky and dissimilar to what you would see on the dyno screen, since dyno software automatically scales the screen to fit the whole chart. And we encountered problems as motors started spinning past 8000rpm.
The potential solution is to ditch the old charts and start anew. This is assuming you actually compare old charts side by side. We'd scale them to reflect what today's cars are capable of, along with making them appear more similar to a dyno's readout. We'd squash them down and stretch them to two-thirds of a page.
But there is a drawback. There are cars that still dyno like the sport compacts of old-like the Honda Fit. In cases like these, you would be stuck with an extremely flat looking curve that wouldn't be clear where the VTEC kicked in or when the power delivery becomes rough.
So we're taking a vote. Two charts are printed with a stock Honda Fit (one of the lowest power cars we've tested) and Project Z with the Vortech supercharger. But just keep in mind: anything above 350 wheel-hp will cause the vertical to start shifting to make room.
Let us know, or forever hold your peace.