saw this on another forum pretty cool facts if true ..top fuel

[5pointslow]

A Lesson in Acceleration:
First, some useful info:
* One NHRA Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than all the cars in the first four rows at the Daytona 500.
* Under full throttle, a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 1 gallon 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 426 Hemi V8 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 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.
* 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 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees 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 at 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 9500 rpm.
* The Bottom Line; assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and if,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 the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).


Putting all of this into perspective for you bikers: 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 cranked 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 awayfrom where you just passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught you, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.
That, folks, is acceleration .

[Dave C.]

Thats some great info. Too bad they don't run 1/4 mile anymore.

[richter69]

im gonna call bullshit on a few of those " facts ".........

[5pointslow]

yeah im not sure if these are so called "Facts" are true some do seem to be on the crazy side when yuou stop to think about but im not here to say yay or nay ... i find it interesting if they are

[bbf-falcon]

im gonna call bullshit on a few of those " facts ".........

X2 on that. I really don't think they make the HP that they say,and I don't know how they know,since they say there is not a dyno big enough to test it. I call BS also on most of there theories.  

[bb429power]

If you do the weight vs ET calculation it only shows around 5,000hp. But if you do a mph vs weight calculation it shows 7,000hp. I can believe the difference since the way the clutch engages and all the downforce on the dragster. I'm curious on the exact hp and torque numbers.

[Mike R]

It doesn't really matter what the number is, they are making a shit ton of power

[John I.]

I don't believe the spark plugs/dieseling thing, the mandated rev limiter wouldn't work.  Also, if they drop a cylinder, it doesn't hydrolock, it just pushes the raw fuel out the pipe, and the driver corrects from the loss of downforce.  
Crewchiefs are claiming 10,000hp, they're smarter than I am so I just believe them.  Standing a few feet away from one leaving the starting line helps the belief factor too.

[kim]

since going away from the 100% nitro, and about the mid 1980s where fuel pump tech really improved, the spark plugs are no longer consumed. Only place the rev limiter is in affect is at the starting line, Max RPM is achieved at the hit of the throttle, when the clutches are in the free slip state. As clutch load comes on and aero loading takes affect on the chases the engine RPM drops. At the 1000ft mark now, the engine if on all 8 cylinders is drug down to a measly 6500 RPM. HP, 8000 to 10,000 depending on tune. Lots of times they are pulling back on HP to try and get the car to hook. Still a limitation of only soooo much rubber available to get a bite.

[5pointslow]

this was just copied and pasted from another forum , info very well may not be correct .

some of the facts seem a little crazy but thought was a good read for the hell of it

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