This is the sort of information that one NEEDS come along a Saturday night, and you're taking your rod and your best girl or guy to the A&W to show off.

You tell everyone how FAST your ride is, and some smart butt in a cowboy hat comes over and asks if you want to race his strange looking car........... .....


 

 



Read this thru slowly and try to comprehend the amount of force produced in just under 4 seconds!  The last paragraph puts it all into perspective !

 

There are no rockets or airplanes built by any government in the world that can accelerate from a standing start as fast as a Top Fuel Dragster or Funny Car…..and that includes any aircraft launched by a catapult from an aircraft carrier. Nothing can compare…..



DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION

   

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


It takes just 15/100ths (0.15) of a second for all 6,000+ horsepower (some believe 8,000 HP is more realistic - there are no dynomometers capable of measuring) of an NHRA Top Fuel dragster engine to reach the rear wheels.


Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 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 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 nitromethane, the flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg F.  (Oxy-acetylene on "cut" is 6,300)


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 one 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.

 

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 4.428 seconds for the quarter mile (11/12/06, Tony Schumacher, at Pomona , CA ).  The top speed record is 336.15 mph as measured over the last 66' of the run (05/25/05 Tony Schumacher, at Hebron , OH ).


Putting all of this into perspective:


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 instant.


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!

You can find me in the pits of at least 2 NHRA National events every year.  I am at Gainesville, FL in March and in Norwalk, OH, that starting in 2012 runs in early July.  I also follow ADRL Extreme Pro Mod racing.  The new 5300 Pro Mod motor ( not legal in NHRA) developed by Allan Johnson is technology extreme.  Normal V8 blocks have 5 cam bearings.  The 5300 block has 9 (nine) cam bearings to minimise the flex of the cam.  By the way, they call it a 5300 block because the piston bore is 5.3 inches in diameter.

The blower belt on my 72 Pinto is 3 inches wide.  The belt on Top Fuel and Pro Mod motors is 3.5 inches wide.  Their belts also have square teeth for aggressive grip while the teeth on my blower belt has rounded teeth to allow the belt a longer life.  The top Blower Pulley on my Pinto is larger than the Bottom Pulley to slow the blower down to produce only 10 PSI of boost.  The Top Blower Pulley on Top Fuel and Pro Mod is smaller than the Bottom Pulley to make the blower spin much faster and produces up to 50 PSI of boost allowing what some say is up to 8000 HP.

I could go on but don't want to bore some.  Would be happy to show anyone around the pits at Gainesville or Norwalk.  Just ask.

Dick

The clutch technology is the key in the Top Fuel ranks.  Getting all that HP to grip the track is the magic.  Most of the big teams have the money and the resources and have mostly the same parts.  Clutch packs back in the day had 1 Clutch plate and 1 floater plate.  Now they are up to 5 clutch plates and 5 floater plates and multiple timers to tell the clutch fingers when to slip and when to grip. 

The 2 worst jobs on a Top Fuel team are the Bottom End and the Clutch Pack. 

The Bottom End guy after every run must pull off the oil pan, unbolt all 8 piston rods from the crank and checks for any wear on the crank to rod bearing surfaces.  If no wear, a new set of 8 rod and piston sets is installed and the oil pan is reinstalled.  If there is a piston cylinder that is scored, one of the top guys pulls out the cylinder sleeve (all the cylinders are sleeved), and installs a new sleeve. All the time the Bottom End guy is on his back under the chassis with hot oil dripping down.  If there is wear showing on the crank, the block is pulled and a new short block is installed.

But the clutch guys job is even hotter and dirtier.  He has to pull the drive shaft apart, remove the clutch shield and remove the clutch pack which is still very hot from the run.  All the parts are hot and full of clutch dust.  Install a new clutch pack, shield and drive shaft.  Between runs the clutch pack is taken apart and checked for warpage because of the high heat generated by the friction produced.  Each piece is measured for warpage and put on a portable lathe and turned down true again if enough material is left.  More clutch dust and just lots of dirty hot parts. 

But both jobs are very important to the team and are well respected.

Pro Mod guys while making about 5000 HP are changing from clutch packs to automatic transmissions and converters.  But the Nitro guys still run clutch packs.

Dick