Pepi Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 A friend of mine recently gave me a Street machine mag with some pretty amazing facts and figures in about Drag Racing as I know some of you have attended "run what yer brung" days I thought they may be of interest to you.... Top Fuel Facts... One dragsters 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower than the first eight rows at Daytona. Under full throttle a dragster engine consumes 1.5 gallons of nitro per second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747, but with four times the energy volume. The supercharger takes more power to drive than a stock Hemi makes. Even with nearly 3000cfm 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. Duel magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder into each cylinder. At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame front of nitromethane is 7,050 degrees F. 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 shutdown by cutting off its fuel flow. If a 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. To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G. But, in reaching 200mph well before half-track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G. Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence. Top fuel engines ONLY turn 540 revolutions from light to light!! The redline is actually quite high at 9,500rpm. And finally ...to give an idea of the acceleration, the current top fuel dragster (2003) elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter-mile. This means that if you could be coming across the start line in your Westy (if) on a flying start the dragster would beat you to the finish line FROM A STANDING START in the 1/4 mile distance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick M Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 Top Fuel ET record is down to 4.441 now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cptsideways Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 Top fuel is simply awesome, nothing quite it on earth for noise & feeling the vibrations through the ground, it truly deafening. Seeing a 4 sec is just something else, has to be seen to be believed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff oakley Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 I saw Slammin Sammy Millar at the pod in the late seventies early eighties driving a rocket car. The engine was a peroxide powered ex lunar landing one. basically fuel is poured onto a crystal where it converts to a gas and drives the car forward. Seeing this go IIRC 295 in the quarter was awesome. There was just a whoosh and it was gone. Apparantly he was limited to 300mph as the g force made him black out otherwise. The maddest thing I saw was a dutchamn called hen vink, who had a smaller version of the rocket on a bike!!! Two top fullers or funny cars truley spectacular. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 If a 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. To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G. But, in reaching 200mph well before half-track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G. Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick M Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 Two top fullers or funny cars truley spectacular. Ding !! The smell, the vibrations, the wall of noise - it's a truly awesome sight (and sound ! ) !! But you should see what comes out of the sump when they rebuild the engines !! It's a sort of evil-looking green soup - bears no semblance to oil any more ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROC Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 Couple of Sammy Miller's Vanishing Point rocket car stats: 0-60 0.16 seconds 0-100 0.36 seconds Quarter mile in 3.58 seconds, 386mph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Stare Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 the current top fuel dragster (2003) elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter-mile. This means that if you could be coming across the start line in your Westy (if) on a flying start the dragster would beat you to the finish line FROM A STANDING START in the 1/4 mile distance. Pretty amazing fact I watched a Concorde documentary earlier this year. To give you an idea of how fast it travels.......the pilot turned round to talk to the camera crew (who were just benind him) and said...... "Concorde travels fast.... faster than it takes my words to leave my mouth and reach your ears" Pretty amazing........next time someone talks to you...think of this fact!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 ...holy sheet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chazpowerslide Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 My brother used to race bikes at the Pod in the late eighties and we saw Slamin Sammy on many occasions. They used to put a 20 tonne dumper truck behind Sammy's car with the back flipped up near vertical to deflect the blast. IRRC the truck had about 40 tonnes of lead balast. When Sammy pulled the stopper out the blast used to shift the truck 10ft backwards!!!!!!!! When they first ran the car at the pod Sammy managed to blow down the stand behind the start line and blow the windows out of the controll tower. Awesom stuff. Chaz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westy Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 Two top fullers or funny cars truley spectacular. Ding !! The smell, the vibrations, the wall of noise - it's a truly awesome sight (and sound ! ) !! But you should see what comes out of the sump when they rebuild the engines !! It's a sort of evil-looking green soup - bears no semblance to oil any more ! My mate does drag racing but not at top fuel level (currently running 7.5 I believe). They run the engine purely on wins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.c Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 I saw Slammin Sammy Millar at the pod in the late seventies early eighties driving a rocket car. The engine was a peroxide powered ex lunar landing one. basically fuel is poured onto a crystal where it converts to a gas and drives the car forward. Seeing this go IIRC 295 in the quarter was awesome. There was just a whoosh and it was gone. My Dad took me to see this when I were a young lad. I seem to remember them having The Shadows playing through the P.A. during the build up............then getting the crowd to count down from 10.............then the crowd laughing when he didn't move.............then the crowd gasping as there was the whoosh and he was gone. And my Dad biting through the stem of his pipe with the surprise. Must take my Son there soon. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markcoopers Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 The waste gas that comes form a top fuel Nitro methane burning engine is CS gas. This is why your eyes sting like a bit** when they pass/you get close. + The noise and the vibrations as they pass, it's a pretty involving spectator sport. I heard that during one of Sammy Millar’s runs the G's flattened his eye balls and left him temporary blind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Green Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 I went to Blackbushe in the 60's when American dragsters were first seen in the UK and then two meetings in the 70's at Snetterton. Roz Prior was the English pilot in a Top Fuel at Snetterton. The noise and spectacle (still does) knock F1 in to a cocked hat! This was at the time the yanks were making 7 seconds and the Europeans were just in the 8’s. If anybody has never been Drag racing, go once, just to “feel” the racing, you may get hooked. By the way, an excellent post by Pepi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepi Posted May 21, 2004 Author Share Posted May 21, 2004 the current top fuel dragster (2003) elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter-mile. This means that if you could be coming across the start line in your Westy (if) on a flying start the dragster would beat you to the finish line FROM A STANDING START in the 1/4 mile distance. Pretty amazing fact I watched a Concorde documentary earlier this year. To give you an idea of how fast it travels.......the pilot turned round to talk to the camera crew (who were just benind him) and said...... "Concorde travels fast.... faster than it takes my words to leave my mouth and reach your ears" Pretty amazing........next time someone talks to you...think of this fact!!! This is made more amazing by the fact that I have actually got that slightly wrong ....it should have read if you could be coming across the start line in your Westy at 200mph(if) on a flying start the dragster would beat you to the finish line FROM A STANDING START in the 1/4 mile distance. PHEW!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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