[DeTomaso] THE DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION!!

David Fisher fisher95020 at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 18 10:15:01 EDT 2012


Truly awesome!


Sent from my iPad

On Sep 18, 2012, at 7:04 AM, Dave <dave at damardirect.com> wrote:

> THE 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 
> but 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 heat of the 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 immediately 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 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 one 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!
> 
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