These are pretty amusing. A couple of people who experience Top Fuel drag racing for the first time. It's a big step up to nitro-burning, 11K HP, 300+ MPH in 330 yards, dragsters.

I believe this first video is in Sydney, AUS.



By the finals after dark, she's a seasoned pro--big grin on her face


Edited to add this video from the NHRA's website on calculation of this era's 11,000+ HP

Those were great!

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
Those were great!

It's a hell of a thing to experience. Sight, smell, hearing, physical movement of your body (muzzleblast best explanation), all senses are impacted brutally.

That is good stuff. I've never been. I would do the same thing

Always liked this bit of info.

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 of a second for all 6,000+ horsepower of an NHRA Top Fuel dragster engine to reach the rear wheels.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane 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 nitro methane, the flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg 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.

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 a 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.

Top fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

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 moment.

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!

It’s not your ears.
It’s the shocking impact to your core.

15 or so years ago I took the Jr DFs to the night of fire here in Ut. It is an end of season event featuring jet and nitro methane cars as well as some novelty drag vehicles. It is a remarkable spectacle. We had been going for years, but this was the youngest DF's first time at the drags. He was 6. The cars were thunderous so each of us had hearing protection.

As is typical for him, he had to pee right before the final run of jet cars. REALLY?! GEEZELOUISE, SON! So as the cars were flaming and puffing great clouds of smoke and staging to the tree, I fast-walked the boys to the finish line where the restroom was so I could at least watch the finish while he used the terlet. As I took him into the cinderblock and concrete building, I told him to leave his hearing pro on his head while he did his doody.

He was safe in the metal stall, so I trotted out to watch the race. The cars were huffing and puffing and blowing the house down with magnificent walls of flame. The other boys in their excitement were nearly extruding themselves through the chain link fence that separated us from the track with a 20ft no man's land. I skidded up to them and had enough time to feel briefly relieved I hadn't missed it before BOOM!, they were off!!!

In an instant they reached and passed us with such force and noise, we staggered back and giggled with delight. I looked back just in time to see my youngest emerge from the potty building eyes wide and shaking in shock. He had removed his hearing pro and experienced what we heard and felt in the echo chamber of the masonry and steel enclosure. lol

I invited him to go with me to the drags this summer since Rocky Mountain Raceways will be closing forever after this season. He politely declined.

Very cool. Even though I'm not a "car guy" I could have watched an hour long much more in depth special on how they work.

Took my brother in law and his 12 year son/my nephew to the Mopar nationals last summer at Bandimeer. I watched them instead of the race. They had the same look and expressions. The punches in your chest from the exhaust are amazing.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Very cool. Even though I'm not a "car guy" I could have watched an hour long much more in depth special on how they work.

Good stuff. Among the statements that caught my ear: “The diameter of the fuel line is 2 1/2”! The fuel pump capacity is 100 gallons/minute!

That sounds like a A-10's rotary cannon.

quote:

Originally posted by 2012BOSS302:
Always liked this bit of info.

DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION

Those are very interesting!

I've posted this before... The shortened version of one of my favorite drag racing videos:


https://youtu.be/uB934ndMjII

The long version:
https://youtu.be/S7m3xyW5hbE

quote:

Top fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

Of all those stats this one makes no sense on its face. Not sure what WOT which but I assume ~8000K. 4 seconds would be 533 revs, plus burnout at less. Pretty remarkable.

This thread got me watching and recording NHRA again this weekend!

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a top fuel dragster at the strip. The sound and feeling is like nothing else out there. You feel the concussive force of the engine shaking the stands as it screams by. The way you feel the energy and sound of those dragsters is something you just cannot understand until you experience it.

Watch a slow motion of a finish in Top Fuel Dragster, one that shows the entire car. You'll see that the rear tires aren't even close to round when the car is under power.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Very cool. Even though I'm not a "car guy" I could have watched an hour long much more in depth special on how they work.

Very, very interesting. Great video!

Hard to imagine spark plugs getting consumed and becoming superfluous in a few seconds, and pistons being one-use only. Transmission parts welding themselves together.....wildly different design concepts.

I bet rebuilding the engine between each run must be hot work.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

Hard to imagine spark plugs getting consumed and becoming superfluous in a few seconds, and pistons being one-use only. Transmission parts welding themselves together.....wildly different design concepts.

I bet rebuilding the engine between each run must be hot work.

I bet that stuff wasn't by design, just what started happening as the HP limits kept being pushed. Now, the design takes it into account. Get her 1000' down track before she 'splodes!

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
This thread got me watching and recording NHRA again this weekend!

That’s actually true for me too. I haven’t been to a drag racing event live in a long time. I suppose one of these days I need to partner up with someone and go down to Bandimere for another try. It’s a brutally long day though

Exploding engines, although spectacular, have become a major problem in the NHRA. Not only does it litter the track with parts and fluids, they've had spectators injured. Not only that, if you're driving a top fuel funny car, an explosion in front of you is a bit of a distraction while driving somewhere between 150-300 mph.

This season sensors are installed in the engines, if they detect a pressure spike in the pan and valve train it shuts the fuel off to prevent an explosion and the car coasts to a stop under control.