Impressive Numbers

[Deuce]

Went to an open house a couple of weeks back at Schumbacher Racing in Brownsburg Indiana. Here are some stats on their top fuel dragster.

7,500 peak horsepower. That's almost 1,000 horsepower per cylinder.

The supercharger produces a maximum boost of 45.5 or more that 3.0 bar, twice the boost achieved by a Mitsubishi Evo VIII.

The fuel system pumps 77 gallons per minute at wide open throttle. The engine will consume 22.75 gallons of rule during warmup, burnout, staging and the quarter-mile run. The fuel costs 900.00 per 55 gallon drum.

Accelerates from 0-100mph in 0.84 sec at 4.75 g.

Top speed of 333.08mph in 1320 feet. When the parachute is deployed at the end of the run the driver experiences peak deceleration of 6 g.

[motordavid]

A similar, if more unfreakinbelievable snippet...I dug this
up from somewhere; had posted it a long time ago, but
BM'd the stats. Fairly remarkable, imo.

* 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 dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitromethane 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 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 (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by which quantities of reactants
and products in chemical reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitromethane the flame
front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.

* Nitromethane 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 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 9500rpm.

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 (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:
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 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 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 1320 foot long race course.

[Deuce]

It takes 900 hores just to drive the supercharger.

The twin MSD magnetos produce 88 amps. You need just 12 more to power your MIG welder.

The crankshaft turns 569 times during the entire quarter mile. Each intake valve opens 284 times.

The block and heads are NCN-milled for soldi billets of aluminum and the oil pan is titanium.

The engine uses 28 quarts of 70-weight oil mised with a special thickener.

The supercharger reaches a tempertature of 165 in Fahrenheit after just 4.5 seconds of maximum boost.