Admit One / mental gymnasium
(like sit-ups for your brain)

An e-mail from Bill Neely to David E. Davis, Jr.
of Automobile Magazine… Please, credit where
credit is due.

A lesson in acceleration but first some useful information:

One Top Fuel Dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes
more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

Under full throttle, a Top Fuel Dragster engine consumes
1.5 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 426 Hemi V8 engine can not 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 half way, the engine is dieseling from compression
plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The
engine can only be shut down after cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro
builds up in the affected cylinder 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 mph 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 red line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.

The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off,
the crew worked for free, and 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. The top speed record is 333.00 mph as measured
over the last 66’ of the run.

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.

That, my friends, is acceleration!!

via Bandit,

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