Real Acceleration

[jon_570]

DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION

One top fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower

than the first 5 rows of stock cars at the Daytona 500. (approx - 8000 hp)

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

methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same

rate with 25% less energy being produced.

A Dodge Hemi V8 street engine cannot produce enough power to drive the

dragster's supercharger.

With 3,000 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 (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by

which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are

determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture of nitro methane, the flame front

temperature measures 7,050 deg F. (approx - 14.7:1+ on a car)

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 essentially the

output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After halfway,

the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of exhaust

valves at 1,400 deg 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 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.

Top fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light!

Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions

under load.

The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm.

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

for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimate $1,000.00 per

second. Most top fuel crews include 6 team members and a crew chief and

today

few of the top teams have anyone working for free. If you run 4 passes

to qualify and

4 passes on Sunday that is about $64k plus crew, driver and breakage and

there is plenty of that in Top fuel. No wonder they need Big sponsor bucks.

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).

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 pass the dragster at an

honest 200 mph. The "tree" goes green for both of you at that exact split

second

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 by a significant margin. Think about it;

from a standing start, the

dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught you, but nearly

blasted you off the road when he passed you all within a mere 1,320 foot

long race course.

[rcmobile]

very cool reading, true power

[Toxiccasper]

Interesting

[FCsteve]

you also pay far more then any stock car. you cant drive it outside the track. you gotta leave it on a truck.

congradulations, you spent tens of thousands of dollars on a car that you can never drive. except of course that once a month when you pay for gas to drive your trailer to the track to run down the track a few times.