Cecil

This is a cool read...

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"Acceleration" Defined.... (Per the Keith Black Website)

One top fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 4 rows of stock cars at the Daytona 500.

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 stock Dodge Hemi V8 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.

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 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.

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, picture this scenario: 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 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 1,320 foot long race course.

... and that my friend, is ACCELERATION!

TNathe

i watched a show on this, sooo damn awsome. Someone would make a killing if they could accurately produce all the sensations you get in a dragster and put them on some sort of roller coaster type of ride.

Z06_Killa

Good find Cecil

Sneakin Deacon

someone better have a damn good insurance company to reproduce 8G's for a public ride.

if you want to come to my place though, i have some clips around and a decent stereo...you can lay on the ground and ill drop about 1400lbs of bricks on you and pull them up at 1/4 a second.

btw, they left out the part where it takes roughly 900hp to turn that big ole 14-71 dwarfer

???

GSRBoy

XXXtrrreeemmmee!!!!

UrbanRR

This is all a different language! english good sir

Sneakin Deacon

saying a new dodge hemi couldnt turn something isnt saying much...itll barely move a car as it is

900hp just makes it something more related to the topic at hand.

Cecil

It's hard to wrap your head around something so powerful on four wheels

stockaccord

that looks like the one in Daytona across the street from the speedway. I've been there once and it is probably the closest you will get to being in the seat of a top fuel dragster.

0-70mph in about 3-4 seconds. Not the same as 0-200 in 2 sec's but close enough