One dragster's 500-inch Hemi
makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows at Daytona.
Under full throttle,
a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro per
second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully
loaded 747, but with 4times 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 1/2
way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the
glow of exhaust valves at1400 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 1/2 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! |
