Top Fuel Facts

[Guest Anonymous]

A friend fowarded this to me I was amazed.

 

* One dragster's 500 cubic-inch Hemi motor makes more horsepower than

the first 8 rows at Daytona.

 

* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro

 

per second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747 but

with 4 times the energy volume.

 

* The supercharger takes more power to drive than a stock Hemi makes.

 

* Even with nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger

on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form

before

ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.

 

* Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is equivalent to

the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

 

* At the stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the

flame front of nitromethane measures 7050 degrees F. (It explodes! It

doesn't really "burn")

 

* Nitromethane 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.

 

* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2

way, the engine is dieseling from the heat of compression - plus the

glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut

down

by cutting off it's fuel flow.

 

* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up

in those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder

 

heads off the block in pieces or blow the block in half.

 

* Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the big

end of the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front

to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronization

 

with the pistons.

 

* Launch acceleration is close to 8G's.

 

* If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for

once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run still costs $1000.00 per second.

 

* Top Fuel Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you finish

reading this sentence.

 

* The engine only gives about 600 revolutions before requiring a

complete rebuild after each run.

[johnc]

Be afraid! Be very, very afraid! Damn!

[Kevin Shasteen]

Originally posted by bbbowtie:

..,Top Fuel Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you finish reading this sentence...,

I was about to read your post, but a Top Fuel Dragster just went by; caught my attention.

 

Just for the record, you will have finish reading my post with time to spare prior to my Factory Inline 6 280z finishing the 1/4mile.

 

Seriously tho, isnt it amazing what the auto enthusiast will do to get their "Fix" for speed; the real speed,that is, not the illegal stuff.

 

Kevin,

(Yea,Still an Inliner)

[Guest Anonymous]

Thanks for that, that was cool reading. After reading all that I'm way less surprised that they typically blow the motors all the time, talk about on the edge of diseaster... Also if they get much faster, they'll need to start using those 'G' suits the pilots wear, I think a fighter pilot 'only' see's about 9 g's?

 

Regards,

 

Lone

[patzky1]

Yeah, 9 G's vert. will start to make you black-out! But 9 G's horizontal would probably just plain knock you out if it is applied fast enough (torque!).

Pat

[katman]

There was a quote from Car and Driver a few years ago in an article about Top Fuel. They said that using nitromethane in an internal combustion engine was kinda like using a Claymor mine to unstop your toilet. It works great but it's hard on the toilet.

[Guest Anonymous]

wow thats insane but think about those early to mid eighties formula 1 racer cars. they were only 90 CID and put out 1500HP! i think in corky bells book maximum boost he say per cubic inch a indy motor outperforms the drag motor and still lasts a lot longer to boot. those motors ran on toulene i believe. what i would give to be able to drive one of those hopped up gocarts for a few laps just once i my life