I scavenged this item. Truth or ****? One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 6 rows at the Daytona 500. Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 gallon of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 2 5% less energy being produced. A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster 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 nitromethane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F. Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric wa ter 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 p***. 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 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 at an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8Gs. 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 9500rpm. It takes 1500+hp just to turn a top fuel blower. The pressure coming out of the headers can provide 1000lbs of downforce. When a cylinder goes out, it can actually steer the car due to loss of downforce on one side. There is so much torsional twist in the crankshaft (up to 20 degrees at the big end of the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front to rear to try and re-phase the valve timing closer to synchronization with the pistons. The car will be going over 60mph before the rear wheels cross the start line, 300 inches. The Bottom Line; ***uming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated US $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: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin-turbo" powered Corvette Z06 (or blown Viper). Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel drags ter is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you p***. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard 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 hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and p***es you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just p***ed 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 p***ed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course. Thanks to Diana Scafire for the above information on dragsters.
Having just left fuel racing (at a nostalgia level) after fifteen years, I can vouch for this being accurate. Fuel cars are very delicate instruments, making incredible power, so much that it is almost unbelievable. There is nothing like the smell of nitro in the morning.
Pretty much,although I think the actual fuel consumption is prolly more than a gal. per sec. But any way you choose to slice a modern T/F car is a bad m/f. T.OUT
"Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a p***. 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 the fuel flow" This is the only thing I dont understand.NHRA has put rev limiters(retards timing at a certain point during the run). If the motor is "dieseling",how in the hell could you retard the timing,(spark)& have it make a difference?
Thanks for posting this I have been looking for it, My Dad's best friend's daughter had a copy of it and sent it to him. I never cease to be amazed by the Railboys, nascar ain't ****.Gabe
"The car will be going over 60mph before the rear wheels cross the start line, 300 inches." now tell me, how in the hell are you supposed to drive something like that on the street? interesting read, again, thanks
They also tear them down between rounds out in the open air with dust blowing around in conditions where you wouldn't work on your SBC under time pressure and with swarms of fans a few feet away. Every bit as practiced as a Nascar pit stop crew.
We had a local guy named Pat Dakin who ran Top Fuel for a while in the early 90's and was always out there talking to school kids about his racing. I recall him saying once that he would go through about 12 gallons of fuel during each run, start-up to finishline. He also said that it cost him for each run, including all his overhead, crew and expenses a little over $3500, and that's without any breakages. That's too rich for my blood... Vance
Patty Dakin. Drove for G.L. Rupp,& also had his own Top Fuelers. His cars always ran well,& he also had some of the prettiest. Hard racer.
Sad for Pat, he got out of it when NHRA refused to let him run with a Japanese cigarette sponser on his car. They felt it was a threat to Winston, um, yeah. Pat was/is a great guy. Him and another local guy named Ray Franks. This guy is a clutch wiz. Vance
The info is definitly true. And yes, he conditions that these motors see are truly amazing. We are running Top Fuel right now, also Nostalgia as somebody stated earlier. Ya gotta love rolling into a dragstrip for a match-race, and realizing that the pits are either gravel, or gr***. Lots of fun laying on your back in the gravel, and dropping a oil pan. Yes, the expenses can add up, even if NOTHING goes wrong, but for us, it is nowhere near the $3,500 listed above. Last we figured, it costs us between $800 and $1,000 per run. Gotta love it, though.
Wow, in the midst of legends! I have never drove nor worked on one but i was under the impression that it took 800hp to turn the blower, not 1500..or did I misread it? Regardless everybody deserves a ride in one, i know I want one! -1fast72nova
Yeah, I think you're right. 1500 sounds too high, I was under the impression it was about 800 as well. We are limited to only a 6-71 blower, so our blowers require significantly less power to turn.
Benzine440 - I love drag trivia. What do you get when you mix Nitromethane and Hydrazine? CH3NO2 - I was wondering when someone would take that name. Watching a full p*** on fuel is an experience, as is the carnage. Those stats have changed a little in the last 10 years. What's the saying Gasoline is for washin parts Alcohol is for drinkin Nitro is for racing! Thanks for the read.
Burned pistons. Cylinder heads that clear the grandstands. Vaporized superchargers. In other words, carnage. Wasn't there a team that played around with that successfully back in the day? Surfers? I dunno, it was before my time.
I have some friends that run a Nostalgia Top Fuel car as well.When they get the blower back from Mike Kuhls shop for servicing,you cannot turn the top blower pulley by hand.They've even tried spinning just the blower with the starter,& it drags the starter down pretty good. Tight clearances,& new teflon/nylatron stripping will do it every time!
If you use it quick, you get gobs of power. If you let it sit more than 5 or 10 minutes, you get a cl*** III explosive that will detonate if you sneeze to hard...
Which team are you talking about? I'm always curious to see who all is out there. Some people I have met at the dragstrip, I just don't know their screen name, or any of that info.
Tedford & McGee. I basically hang with them when they run Pomona Goodguys,March Meets & the Calif Hot Rod Reunions. The car now has a full body on it,& is called the "Overtime Special" Everyone on that team works overtime,& all the OT money goes into the car. I'm pretty sure it's ran in the 5.80s,& know for a fact its been over 240.
Sweet. I'm not sure if I have met them, but I hope I do this next summer. We are hoping to make it out to the left coast for a few races this year. We are running the old Steiner/Berger combo in our car, and have been getting lots of over-the-phone-tuning help from Brad himself. We bought the motor almost two years ago. Right now we have a '05 Neil and Parks ch***is, running a shorty body. I prefer the looks of a full bodied car, but they can be a real pain in the *** when you are in the pits, not to mention it really ****s to ruin a good paint job from nitro being spilled or splashed on it. Our car is identical to the one currently being ran by Jack Harris, using a slip-joint ch***is. N&P do beautiful work, I highly recommend them to anyone looking to have a racecar built. Gotta love a father and son team, as that's what our team is as well. We have the equipment to be able to run 5.80's or better, and we fully intend to this next year.
I'm so jealous! I wish I could be there with you guys running low 6's to high 5's! Man !! gotta love it! Maybe you guys can help support my new site and place some Hotrodders Auctions stickers on your cars At least think of me next time you turn a bolt or make a p*** -1fast72nova
We ran AA/FD back in the sixtes at Milan and Detroit Dragway. It was my buddies car called the Brute we also had it at the autorama a few times. 3 man pit crew in the dirt no rebuilds run what you brung. Warmed the engine on Alcohol till the heads where hot shut down then added nitrol 90% to 95% push start down the track and ran. Nothing like what was discribed above but it was fun anyway the nitro was like tear gas once it fired it would make your eyes water. Ah the good old days thanks for bringing back memories.
probably takes more like 250 horses to turn that blower(that is what Keith Black estimated on our KUHL.) what used to astonish me was the pure consumption of fuel. think of it like this--a honda gets 31 miles to the gallon our pro mod used to get 31 GALLONS TO THE MILE!! a perfect launch for us meant three full revolutions of the tire before it hit the lights--and that was a 34 inch by 18 inch slick. it was more like 60 m.p.h. in a foot. we lost on average 1/8 inch of tread per session. 8 g's of acceleration was about right--on average. if the track was too sticky,9 was not unheard of.that's also when **** starts breaking. On our pro mod, it made 2800 horsepower-WITH THE BLOWER TURNED DOWN 30%! A complete top end rebuild,tune up and in lenco cars clutch adjustment must be completed in 40 minutes in a "big dog" race--along with pressure adjustments,'chute packing,wheelie bar adjustments,and all the other miscelanious **** that goes along with it. our hemi ran the same heat range plugs as a briggs and stratton lawn mower--only real difference is they had no end on the electrode. they fired directly to the top of the piston! (and yep, they were paperweights after each p***.) most single destructive force I have ever seen on a drag motor was a large bug or small bird fly into a blower mid p***. it sounds like ********, but when we watched it in slo-mo, you could see the blower case distort, fire color change in two cylinders then all hell broke loose. popped like a balloon. glad it wasn't me. yep, these things are dangerous.
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