Hawthorne Caterpillar Launches State-of-the-Art Engine Test Center

Providing best in class rebuild and testing services to customers

Hawthorne Cat® meeting the needs of customers now and well into the future

About Hawthorne Cat®
Founded in 1956, Hawthorne Cat® is an authorized dealer for Caterpillar® construction and power equipment in San Diego, Hawaii, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa. Hawthorne sells, rents, provides parts and service to various industries including general building construction, landscaping, marine, trucking, paving, power generation and other engine-related markets.

State-of-the-Art Engine Test Center
Due to the large hp engines (Cat® 3516) and genset population in their service area, Hawthorne expanded and modernized its corporate campus in Rancho Bernardo by adding a state-of-the-art Engine Test Center and on-highway truck testing facility. The 5,000 square foot facility has separate bays for engine, chassis, and generator testing and features Taylor Dynamometer’s DS4012-HS Engine Dyno which allows engine testing up to 4,250 hp (3,169 kW). A TD-3100 Portable Engine Dyno capable of testing engines up to 1,000 hp (746 kW) and a TD-36 Tandem-Axle Chassis Dynamometer 1,100 hp (820 kW). The dyno shop also features Taylor’s highly-engineered facility support equipment including cooling, fueling, ventilation, exhaust, water recirculation system and DynPro2 data acquisition and control system.

Keys to Success
Hawthorne Cat® worked with Taylor Dynamometer in the past and has always had good results. This project was no exception. Taylor worked with the construction team to value engineer the building and systems to help meet Hawthorne’s project budget. Building codes and parking restrictions at the new facility required a lot of the support equipment to be roof-mounted. So Taylor’s engineering team went to work on a roof design that would support the weight of the cooling system’s towers.

Another key piece to the successful implementation was involving Taylor’s Test Cell Design Services from the beginning stages of the project, well before any excavating occurred. This helped to reduce risk, costs and deliver a safe, convenient and well-organized testing facility. Throughout the project, Taylor remained in constant communication with Hawthorne Cat®, the engineering team and construction group to resolve problems before they impacted the schedule, keeping the project on track for their open house.

Learn more about Taylor’s test cell solutions