Top fuel...

Taken from another website, but interesting reading all the same...

"A lesson in acceleration but first some useful information:

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 Top Fuel Dragster engine consumes 1.5 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 426 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster’s 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 half way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down after cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinder 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 mph before you have completed reading this sentence.

Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light.

Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

The red line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.

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 $1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile. The top speed record is 333.00 mph as measured over the last 66’ of the run.

Putting all of this into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo Corvette Z06. More than a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a measured quarter-mile as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the Vette 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, but you hear a brutal whine that sears your eardrums, and within three seconds, the dragster catches you and beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile from where you just passed him. From a standing start, the dragster spotted you 200 mph and not only caught you but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 feet.

That, my friends, is acceleration!!

via Bandit,"

Discuss....

Bloody awesome read that Stu, i love the Top Fuel dragsters and keep promising myself i will get to the Pod and watch them some day.

wow! would love to be passanger in one of these!

Brilliant.

You can be a passenger for £500 for 1 run in their 2 seater, i think it does it in the 6-7 second region which is still bloody fast and will scare the crap out of you.

My favourite part of that article...

"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."

I mean the fact that the exhaust gases can split the water vapour is mind boggling.

I'm with you Si, I must make an effort to get to the Pod to see some of these 'cars'

Having grown up about 5 mins from the pod, all I can say is get yourselves over there. They are truely awesome machines, especially the top fuellers and methanol funny cars.

Maybe an odd-unit trip there?

Im up for it, all crash at yours too.

This is a good fave bit

After half way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F.

Awesome awesome engineering!

I'm staggered that a jet engine produces LESS energy than a dragster: boggles the mind!

I'd like to add that some of the more famous top fuel drivers have suffered from long term eye damage due to the g's pulled on launch causing the bits behind the eye to seperate away from the main eye.

detached retinas?!

wow.

Awesome machines Top fuellers

They shake the ground and are incredibly loud (no exhaust silencers!). You have to keep your eyes on them because they can be at the end of the 1/4 before you know what's happened!

Try not to look at them too hard though because burnt Nitromethane is basically Nitric acid (iirc), and it really stings your eyes, even as far away as the spectator areas. It's noxious, dangerous stuff......and don't get any ideas of running a road car engine on it

Sitting in the tower end of the stands at the pod is something else, although my personal fav is sitting about halfway up the 1/4 on the banking. That way you get them still at full throttle and you get a true sense of how fast 250+mph is as it goes past.

My fav for the jet car used to be watching people standing in the cattle shed at the back, most people aren't stupid enough to do it twice!

Haha yea that is always funny with the jet car.