Now THIS Is ACCELERATION!!

Patrick · 2003-11-25T05:58:11+00:00

OK - This is for all you gear heads out there...One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepowerthan the first 6 rows at the Daytona 500.Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 gallon ofnitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at thesame rate with 25% less energy being produced.* A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drivethe dragster's supercharger.* With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger onoverdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid formbefore ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at fullthrottle.* At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitromethane theflame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.* Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen abovethe stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated fromatmospheric water vapour by the searing exhaust gases.* Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the outputof an arc welder in each cylinder.* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaustvalves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cuttingthe fuel flow.* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro buildsup in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient forceto blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block inhalf.* In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerateat an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well beforehalf-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.* Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completedreading this sentence.* Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light tolight!* Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutionsunder load.* The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.* The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the...

Nov 25, 2003 23 Replies

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Nick D. 22 years ago

Joe -

I think I saw that...but I thought it was a mercedes SUV, a mercedes SL, and Schumacher's Formula 1? Is it the one where the Formula 1 driver is reading a newspaper as the other two start? If not, you should check out that one...also pretty funny ;-)

- Nick

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Joe Cilinceon 22 years ago

No that wasn't the one, but I would love to see it. I always thought that it was a great idea for letting people see just how fast some cars are in relation to what they drive every day. |;-)

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Johnny K 22 years ago

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Richard 22 years ago

For most of us, a sub-six second 0-60 is pretty fast. Think about doing it in 0.4 seconds. Ever see that film of the guy's face (test pilot in the 1960s?) when he's on the rocket sled? I'll bet the drag racer's face is pretty distorted too.

-Rich

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