Top Fuel Dragsters
Guest
Posts: n/a
Top Fuel Dragsters
Some interesting Top Fuel dragster facts:
* One dragster’s 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows of cars at Daytona.
* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 ½ 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 then 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 the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
* At ‘stoichiometric’ (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame front of nitro-methane 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.
* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ½ way,the engine is dieseling from 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.
* To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G’s. But in reaching 200 mph well before ½ track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G’s.
* If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.
* 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 9500rpm
* To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter mile. This means that you could be coming across the starting line in your average Lingenfelter powered “twin-turbo” Corvette at 200 mph (on a FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A DEAD STOP in a quarter mile distance!
* One dragster’s 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows of cars at Daytona.
* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 ½ 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 then 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 the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
* At ‘stoichiometric’ (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame front of nitro-methane 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.
* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ½ way,the engine is dieseling from 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.
* To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G’s. But in reaching 200 mph well before ½ track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G’s.
* If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.
* 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 9500rpm
* To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster elapsed time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter mile. This means that you could be coming across the starting line in your average Lingenfelter powered “twin-turbo” Corvette at 200 mph (on a FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A DEAD STOP in a quarter mile distance!
Guest
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 997
Likes: 0
Rod Bearing Eater
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 27
Likes: 0
__________________
Patrick
05 SRT-4: Daily Driver, 11.9@117.4
88 Aries: 2.2L Turbo (Powered by Megasquirt II)
Patrick
05 SRT-4: Daily Driver, 11.9@117.4
88 Aries: 2.2L Turbo (Powered by Megasquirt II)
Registered User
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 0
Likes: 0
Most of the top fuel cars now run tfx aluminum hemis, measuring 4.19 x 4.50, making 500 cubes including cumbustion chambers, and effectively consume about 1,500 cubic inches of air and fuel every 8 intake strokes. The tfx hemis have factory 426 head bolt, and main bolt patterns, and CAN be used with factory 426 type heads, and factory 426 cranks. They accept factory type cams as well, but not pushrods, since the cam is moved upwards about an an inch to accept the longer stroke. Chyrsler did pretty good first time around... i'd say.
__________________
Honestly... it's a 318.
Honestly... it's a 318.
