A dynamometer, or "dyno" as they're called by you and I, is a device for measuring force, moment of force (torque), or power. In the automotive world, they're used to precisely calculate the power produced by a vehicle's engine at the wheels. A stand-alone dyno setup can cost more than $50,000. Here's how some guys decided to build their own redneck dyno for just $2,000.

What you'll need: A dual-wheel truck axle with a working differential. Four truck tires. Welding gear. Metal beams. Maybe an eddy-current brake. Concrete, gravel and some steel tubing. A farm. The help of two guys from Norway who've already done this. This guide.

Drift-car builders Hans Røthe (Driftfun) and Sindre Haga (Customshit.no) were frustrated by the lack of dyno in their lives. At the duo's outpost in the hinterlands northeast of Oslo, where they'd built two turbocharged LS1-powered Mazda RX7s, they had no way to properly — and safely — tune the cars before heading out on the road.

Buy a chassis dyno? Hell no. Those damn things cost money. Big money. Tens of thousands. But don't forget who we're talking about: Norwegians, the people who crushed Hitler's atomic-bomb program by staging commando raids on their own nuclear plant, which at the time was under Nazi occupation. Norwegians are the founding members of Team Live Badass.

Enter the "redneck dyno." Internet legend holds that somewhere in the US existed a makeshift, but serviceable chassis dyno built out of junkyard parts — specifically the rear-end assembly from a heavy truck. The links are dead now [actually, not all of them], but owing to Røthe and Haga's handiwork, the redneck dyno lives — 4,000 miles away.

The project sprang to life from a single post on LS1tech:

First of all, if anyone ever has come up with a stupid idea of how you could build a "cheap" and functional dynamometer/dynaoack/etc i want to know!

Inspired by another forum member, who quoted a version of "the legend," Røthe and Haga set out to find a usable truck axle. Read on as they take us through the sketchy, but ultimately successful build.