GreenMonster

Stolen from another car forum:

A lesson in acceleration:

First, some useful info:

*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 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 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 nitromethane the flame
front temperature measure 7050 degrees F.

*Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the
stacks at night if 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 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
per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441
seconds for the quarter mile (10/5/03, Tony Schumacher.) The top speed
record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run
(9/28/03 Doug Kalitta.)

Putting all this into perspective:

You are riding the average $250,000 Honda Moto GP 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 the throttle hard open, 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.

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.

That folks, is acceleration!

N.O.6speed

incredible !!!!!!!!!!!

scalbert

And to think that tire technology is a limiting factor and that they are doing this without direct electronic control (they do have data acquisition for post run analysis though). To put this into perspective; 0 - 60 MPH occurs in about 0.5 seconds with 100 MPH coming up in under a second.

With better tires and electronic controls it is thought that 3 second range ETs could be achieved at over 400 MPH. But at that point the human limits seriously come into play.

EricL

Someone was talking about the power of the current F1 engines (whos?) 900+HP, and some commented how one of the Top Fuel guys commented on how they made more power in one cylinder.

And…


“Carl knew of Don Garlits and Joe Amato, but really wasn't sure why they were no longer driving. I explained to Carl that the G-forces a Top Fuel driver experiences while accelerating off the starting line, and when stopping the car with the chutes, are almost equal to that of an F-16 pilot. After many years of driving a Top Fuel car these G-forces begin to affect the drivers body with symptoms of back and neck pain, along with damage to the eyes. The eye damage occurs when the car suddenly begins to stop with the pulling of the chutes. The drivers head lunges forward severely as the car begins to stop but his head is still moving forward. This can cause the retina to slowly begin to separate from the eye and eventually cause blindness. Both Don Garlits and Joe Amato had this condition, and despite surgery with hopes of correcting it, their doctors advised them to stop driving. Knowing this, Luigi has chosen to pull one chute, and then the other if needed. This reduces the G-forces and the severity of movement to the drivers head, thus reducing the amount of possible damage to the retinas.

Zapata

true but F1 engines are N/A and have much less discplacement. The functionality of each engine is also entirely different.

Slimey

I saw this posted on Ernie's House of Whoopass some time ago.

http://www.ehowa.com

EricL

Sure, but I still think the comment is funny (being made by top fuel guy). I'm pretty sure I caught this one on a F1 race show.

You aren't going to get a top fuel dragster to do 3gs around a curve at Indy (at least in its current state).

Form and function -- hey?

pgt89

I pulled 9.4G's on an F-16C Block 30.

GreenMonster

Well, then you can disregard this post. You already know about acceleration

[DWI]

talk about tunnle vision . . .

Chemmech

pgt89, how about some incentive flights for the guys on the board ?
Forgot, F-16 is a single seater .

EricL

There are two seat trainer versions F-16 B and D (D is the two-seat version of the C model).

EricL

Two seat version:

Chemmech

Sweeeet!

scalbert

Hey, I am the closest to him of those in this thread. I got first dibs on a ride...

Hey pgt89, ever come up to Dobbins AFB.

scalbert

But that brings up an intesting question; who pulls these high of Gs more often??

Considering the Top Fuel guys probably make, on average with testing, two to three WOT run per week. Do pilots get to push the planes to this extreme this often?? I know the pilots are generally in better shape but can they stand the loads better due to this.

Chemmech

I've seen guys come back after incentive flights, most of them lose their cookies .

scalbert

Naw, not me though. I have a stomach of Iron...

pgt89

As a pilot you are trained to take that abuse both mentally and physically. Everytime a fighter pilot flyes it is a training mission unless you are in combat. On the average a fighter pilot flies about once a day and stays in the air for 1.3 hours and in that time I am positive he at least pulls 8G's about 10 times. It is your ultimate responsability to be the best fighter pilot you can so you have to condition yourself to those extremes. Some pilots have taken the 16 and 15 up to 10.5-11.1Gs. That is on the verge of breaking (over-G'ing) the jet.

pgt89

I never got the tunnel vision. To me it is more like you start blacking out starting from the top meaning that you can only see the lower part of your vision until you ease up or keep going and black-out.

pgt89

I fucked up guys. When I worked with F-16's (now I am on F-15's) we had about 28 jets, all were F-16C's (one seater) and we had two F-16D's (two seater); therefore, I am used to calling them C-models. I should have put "D" instead of "C" in my original post. I apologize for misleading you guys because I believe you guys think I am a pilot, which I am not. I work on the jets I don't fly them. When I pulled 9.4G's it was on one of my incentive flights. The pilots let us fo everything but take off and land the bird. Hopefully this clears something up.

vinarnold

good info to know thanks....

Chemmech

pgt89, I'm prior Air Force, don't laugh but I used to work on A.G.E. equipment at Travis, then onto Alaska with the 54th. F15-c models, man I miss hearing those things starting up and taking off, especially the F15-E models, since they take off with their afterburners on . It makes your heart rattle in your chest, aaahhhh :P .

RUF87

Nice post . .

Being there to experience these beasties either one (TF/Dragster or a fighter jet) is a treat. I've done both going to school at a fighter base in Germany . . the F15 had just come out and the runway was about less than a 1/2 mile from the school. And the CEO's daughter of the last company I was with ran TF.

Something else to experience is the pits when they are tuning them . . . nothing like nitromethane fumes in your eyes and nose. :'(

The closest to experiencing that kind of G-force was on the Titan at Six Flag over Texas . . . it supposedly gets over 4Gs. I believe it as on the 2nd helix I began to see black spots . :P I don't think I could take 6Gs without blacking out . . but many pilots wear a pressurized suit to help keep the blood in the brain so they don't pass out under those extreme Gs.

Ruf

darrinb

damn, i'd love to down the 1/4 in 3 seconds

JaDia4

The TF-16N was also a two seater at TOP GUN. I wonder how all that going and stopping in a dragster compares to catapault launching and trapping on a carrier?