8/31/2023 0 Comments Top fuel dragster![]() ![]() Therefore, the engine of a Top Fuel dragster pushes burning fuel into the exhaust pipe. It may seem a little counterintuitive, but nitromethane actually burns a little slower than gasoline. This is just due to the different types of fuel. The result, after some pretty complex mathematics, is an engine that triples its power. An engine only needs 1.7 pounds of air to burn a pound of nitromethane.That means you can push eight times as much nitromethane into a cylinder as you would be able to with gasoline. This means more power for each stroke of the piston.Ī standard gasoline engine needs nearly 15 pounds of air to burn one pound of regular gas. While nitromethane produces less energy by weight than gasoline, a cylinder can burn much more of it. That means it burns much more easily than gasoline. Nitromethane is like gasoline that comes with its own oxygen. Regular old gasoline does not generate the power necessary to propel these cars as fast as they need to go. The name “Top Fuel” doesn’t just sound cool, it refers to the fuel used by the dragsters. To do that, they need to be extremely fast.īut what makes these Top Fuel dragsters so unique? Let’s take a look at what makes a Top Fuel car a Top Fuel car. Top Fuel dragsters were built to do one thing: travel a short distance in a very, very short amount of time. The wind resistance brings the car to a stop. After crossing the finish line, drivers hit a switch to deploy two parachutes. These cars are so fast, traditional braking systems do little to slow them down. When they are accelerating, the drivers of Top Fuel dragsters feel G-forces that are comparable to an astronaut launching into space. The engine distributes power to the wheels in just 15/100ths of a second. This makes the dragster the fastest accelerating anything on planet earth. Top Fuel dragsters are a feat of modern engineering.Īfter taking off from the starting line, Top Fuel cars hit 100 miles per hour in less than a second. Well worth your attention.There’s no doubt about it. The book is beautiful as well as instructive, published by Publications International Ltd. Prieto has written a terrific history of hot rods called Hot Rod Chronicle, and if anybody can capture all of that, it would be my pal Prieto. That means the supercharger has been blown off the top of the engine and the raw nitromethane fuel has eaten through your visor. He said, "You know that you're in deep trouble in a dragster if you can suddenly see things clearly. Prieto then reminded me of a factoid he had passed along in the days of front-engined dragsters. He suggested that the business about heat from dragster exhaust igniting the hydrogen in the atmosphere was probably hypothetical. That doesn't sound too excruciatingly boring, now, does it? I called my equally good friend Don Prieto, of the Prietive Group in Torrance, California, to check the facts. 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. 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. The dragster launches and starts after you. The "tree" goes green for both of you at that moment. You run the Vette up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. You have the advantage of a flying start. 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. Putting all of this into perspective: You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo Corvette Z06. ![]()
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