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You think your 850 hp car is fast?

Great example of why I preferred being the faster car back in my bracket racing days. That puts the fuel car experience in perspective.
 
A lesson in acceleration; First some useful info;



One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.



Under full throttle a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 1.5 gallons of nitromethane per second,

a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.



A stock Dodge 426 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragsters 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 ingition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydralic lock at full throttle.



At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel ratio 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 water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.



Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each plug, This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.



Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. after 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression

plus the glow of the exhaust vavles at 1400 degrees F. The engine can be shut down only by cutting the fuel flow.



If spark momentarily fails early in the run, un burned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes

with sufficent 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 200 mph well before half track the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.



Dragsters reach over 200 miles per hour before you have finished 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 red line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.



The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equiptment is paid off, the crew worked bor free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP,

each run costs an estimated $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 run (09/26/03 Doug Kalitta).



Putting all of this into perspective;



You are riding the average $250,000 Honda MotoGP bike. 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 RC211V

hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph (293 ft/sec).

The "tree" goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you.

You keep your wrist cracked hard, but you hearan incredably brutal whinethat 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 pased 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 1320 foot long race course.



That folks is acceleration.

BTW obviously this is an old document... They've gone much quicker...And faster..
 
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Fun info. I'd agree with most of it, except the 747 consumes half the fuel to make 265,000 hp. at half cruising speed.
 
I think who ever wrote it was a little loose with the facts but it's still fun...

And at the end of the day T/F cars are seriously bad ***...
 
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