You guys may have seen this already but it still is a cool read



* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.



* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 10 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.



* A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster supercharger.



* With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.



* At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.



* Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.



* Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.



* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After

1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at

1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.



* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.



* In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.



* Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence.



* The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.



* The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated US $1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is

4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/ 03, Tony Schumacher).

The top speed record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).



Putting all of this into perspective:



You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin-turbo"

powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start.. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest

200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.



That, folks, is acceleration.

 

WOW!

 

Here are a couple other cool facts about Top Fuel that I have picked up over the years:

- A top fuel dragster pumps enough air through it's engine in one quarter mile run to fill up a Goodyear Blimp.

- When the parachutes are deployed, the driver experiences 5 NEGATIVE g's. This is enough of a force that some drivers are getting detached retinas.

oh yeah....what is racecar spelt backwards? RACECAR!!! I saw that bumper sticker at Mission and died laughing...I never even noticed

Andy

 

Cool man!

That's some interesting stuff!

 

Wow! Thats nuts.

 

the RACECAR THING is sweet

 

I read that on another board and was completely amazed. I have only seen some of these things run on TV but never in person. And to put it like that gives it another perspective. Totally amazing.

One question. I dont know what hydrolic lock is. Can someone tell me what that means? Thanks.

 

there was that cool video clip of the top fueler that it would pause every bit and say something interesting about that moment

i hope someone finds it .. it was pretty wicked

 

When a liquid is confined to a space it acts as a solid would and will not compress nor expand. EI when there's too much fuel(or another type of liquid) in the cylinder the fuel will lock the piston in one posistion. This will happen on the comprestion stroke. The only way to cure it is remove the spark plug or pull the engine apart.

 

Ahhhh, thanks for the explanation

 

cool

 

cool post, i enjoyed it, i knew most of it, but there was a couple i didnt know thanks