For some of the more deep-thinking head porters and intake manifold builders, just having dry air-flow numbers wasn’t enough, they wanted more visual 
information that would tell them more about when and where fuel that had been atomized would “fall or shear” and separate back into liquid instead of being atomized in the combustion chamber. In order to visually see that moment some of the engineers used a substance by the name of Dyekim, which they sprayed into the flow bench air upstream of the head. Doing that helped some, but the problem was the head or intake surfaces had to be cleaned after each test. They needed a system that would better simulate the actual fuel/air mixture flowing through a cylinder head or intake manifold.
At this point legendary cylinder head specialist Joe Mondello and engine builder Richard Maskin come into the picture. As a full time racer and engine builder with a 35-year career in Pro Stock competition, Maskin has always been on the cutting edge of technology. So in 2003 he bought a wet flow bench designed and built at the Dart shops by Joe Mondello himself. And by late 2003 the Dart folks were using the radical flow bench to improve the performance of not only the cylinder heads of Maskin’s NHRA Pro Stock engines, but to improve the many mass-produced, high performance cylinder heads they make and sell to the drag racing community.
Since Dart got their wet flow bench up and running about five years ago many other engine builders and manufacturers have developed or bought wet flow benches, and Mondello has built at least one other like the one he built for Dart.
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The head of the Dart cylinder head R&D department, Tony McAfee, has been using the wet flow bench at Dart since it became operational to improve their cylinder heads. When asked how he initially used the wet flow bench to improve the cylinder heads Dart has designed and built prior to them being able to utilize a wet flow bench for R&D, McAfee said that he discovered that some of the data he obtained using the wet flow bench flowing a small block head could be used on a big block head or vice versa regardless of its application.
One of the advantages that McAfee and other cylinder head specialists we talked to, including Billy Leverentz of Oddy’s Automotive, was that a wet flow bench allowed them to see the fuel/air mixture as it flows through the intake port and to see exactly where the fuel drops out of atomization as the fuel/air mixture travels from the fuel source through the intake manifold runners to the runners/ports of the cylinder head into the combustion chamber and actually change the way the fuel flows and is dispersed. (Ed. Note: Darren Morgan, who designs and develops cylinder heads for Reher-Morrison, also has used a wet flow bench for R&D their heads for several years.)
