A friend of mine sent this to me the other day and thought some might find
it interesting.
-------------------------------------------------------
1) One Top Fuel dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower than the
first 8 rows as the NASCAR Daytona 500.
2) Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1.5 gallons of nitro per
second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747 but with 4
times the energy output.
3) The supercharger takes more power to drive then a stock Hemi makes.
4) Even with 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on
overdrive, fuel mixture is compressed into a nearly solid form before
ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
5) Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an
arc welder in each cylinder.
6) At a stoichiometric air/fuel mixture of 1.7:1 (for nitro), the flame from
of nitro methane measures 7,0500 F.
7) Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the
exhaust stacks at night is evidence of igniting hydrogen, disassociated from
atmospheric water vapor by the extreme exhaust gas temperatures.
8) Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After = way,
the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of exhaust valves at
14000 F. The only way to shut down the engine is to cut off the fuel flow.
9) If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in
those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder heads
off the block in pieces or split the block in half.
10) Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (200 in the big end of
the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front to rear to
re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronization with the
pistons.
11) To exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate at an
average of over 4 G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before = track, launch
acceleration is closer to 8 G's.
12) On the tracks that have a shorter shut-down area, many drivers shut off
before the finish line, or even dual parachutes will not stop the car.
13) If all of the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for
once, NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1,000.00 per second.
14) Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this
sentence.
_______________________________________________
LRO mailing list
LRO@land-rover.team.net
http://land-rover.team.net/mailman/listinfo/lro
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jan 08 2003 - 19:43:03 EST