Andrew

# One Top Fuel dragster's 500-cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first four rows at the Daytona 500.

# A stock Dodge Hemi V-8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's 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 nitro methane, the flame front temperature measures about 7000 degrees Fahrenheit.

# Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, separated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing heat of the 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 can be totally consumed during a single pass. After half-distance, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees Fahrenheit. The engine is shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

# If a spark plug fails early in the run, un-burned nitro can build up in the affected cylinder and explode with sufficient force to blow the cylinder head off in pieces or split the cylinder block in half.

# In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate at an average of more than 4 g's. In order to reach 200 mph before half-distance, the launch acceleration approaches 8 g's. A Top Fuel dragster reaches more than 300 mph before you have completed reading this sentence.

# With a redline that can be as high as 9500 rpm, Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light. Including the burnout, the engine needs to survive only 900 revolutions under load.

# Assuming that all of the equipment is paid off, the crew works gratis, and nothing breaks, each run costs an estimated $1000 per second.

# The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter-mile (October 5, 2003, Tony Schumacher). The top-speed record is 333.25 mph as measured over the last 66 feet of the quarter-mile (November 9, 2003, Doug Kalitta).

# Putting all of this into perspective: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo Corvette Z06. More than a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a measured quarter-mile as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the Vette 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, but you hear a brutal whine that sears your eardrums, and within three seconds, the dragster catches you and beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile from where you just passed him. From a standing start, the dragster spotted you 200 mph and not only caught you but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 feet.

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1991 CRX Si -Turbo z6 - if I can ever finish...
2007 Civic Si Sedan - Stock DD
My Engine Swap
Write-ups:
HG
FPR
Wheel
Smiley
Cluster.
Adapters.

pissedoffsol

but cool info nonetheless

B16RacerN2NR

I think if one of those gives me a lead like he'd give that Ligenfilter ZO6, I could take'em easy in my CRX...

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Now that Obama, a (half) Black man, is the President, I don't want to hear anymore about this so-called 'man' who's been holding your lazy ass back. Go get a damn job...

Citizen_Insane

-Yet another reason drag racing is stupid.

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No tech questions through PM please!

B16 CRX....you will be missed

klyph

Build an engine to take maximum abuse, and then actually GIVE it maximum abuse. Heads exploding, Fireballs of death and debris, still sounds cool to me.

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My Project
1978 Honda Civic D16A1 swap - IT IS ALIVE!
Do not PM me with tech questions. I will NOT know the answer.

Andrew

*ahh* i love it.
Heres some more facts:

If the driver pulls the parachute while still accelerating, chances are his/her retina's will disconnect from the negative G's.

Also, if the driver is not as far back in his seat as possible, braced, the force of the launch can also dissconnect the retina.

__________________
1991 CRX Si -Turbo z6 - if I can ever finish...
2007 Civic Si Sedan - Stock DD
My Engine Swap
Write-ups:
HG
FPR
Wheel
Smiley
Cluster.
Adapters.

Speedracer228

"# Putting all of this into perspective: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo Corvette Z06. More than a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a measured quarter-mile as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the Vette 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, but you hear a brutal whine that sears your eardrums, and within three seconds, the dragster catches you and beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile from where you just passed him. From a standing start, the dragster spotted you 200 mph and not only caught you but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 feet."

Id like to see this played out.. on the next Top Gear maybe? lol That would be quite a vid to see if that would really happen.

Celerity

Top gear did an awesome comparo with the Skyline vs a McLaren F1. Then they compared that test (Not visually) with the Veyron. I think it went something like this:

a McLaren can do the 1/4 mile and come to a complete stop before the Skyline makes the full run.
A Bugatti Veyron can do 0 to top speed and back in the amount of time it would take the McLaren to do that same run.

There were a few more neat things about the Veyron... Top Gear titled it "a rolling superlative".

Things like the gas tank size was carefully measured to give the Veyron a top-speed run for 12 seconds before running out of fuel. That car is fuckin crazy.

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