In recent times top fuel horsepower has been so extreme that

>>14100548
>average of over 7k hp
that's pretty serious

>>14100548
LS1 swap it bro

>One dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows at Daytona.
>Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro per second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747 but with 4 times the energy volume.
>The supercharger takes more power to drive than a stock hemi makes.
>Even with nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
>Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
>At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame front of nitromethane 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.
>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 off its fuel flow.
>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 blow the block in half.
>Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees 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.
>To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before 1/2 track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G's.
>If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.
>Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence.

>>14100548
Fastest cars in the universe.
Fucking love top fuel, shit is so cash

>>14100576

Man I remember the 1st time I saw top fuel in person when I was a kid. Just like those videos you see online with people's 1st time reactions. Ah man this is cool not too loud. They stage up and bang the limiter and you realize just how nasty they are. You can literally feel them run down the strip from over 1000 feet away.

>>14100569

The most powerful LS1 based engines I know of use only the production block with an aftermarket deck spacer. Even those race only make about 1,600 hp with twin turbos and nitrous. Haven't seen too many LSX based engines pass much more than 3k hp.

>>14100572
How do the drivers work their way up to driving cars that fast? It's one thing driving a 15 second car and its another driving a ten second car, but a four second car is a whole nother ball game ..it's more like rockets with wheels than a car

>>14100572
And the engine doesn't even turn 1000 times before it's completely rebuilt.

>>14100731
the same way a 7 year old goes from a go kart to a formula 1 car

>>14100572
All sounds legit.. Except..

~$4500 per run? With all of the things you excluded, the only thing left is the fuel.. Is nitro that expensive? Or is that number exaggerated by some other factor?

>>14100576
>>14100655
>idling
>this isn't so bad
>burnout
>wow that's kinda loud
>idling and staged
>heh oh boy this is kinda crazy
>green
>BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
>tense up so hard the cars were at the thousand foot by the time I realized what happened

I'm getting a JDM bro to go next summer, it'll convert him to the church of veeates. I'm not telling him to wear earplugs so he gets the ultimate first experience :^)

too bad it only goes straight

Id take a 50hp Daihatsu over one

>>14100775
well it idles for a few minutes at around 2000 rpm

>>14100823
F1 is still a lot like a normal car. Driving a dragster is kind of like driving a fighter jet that stays on the ground.

>>14100847
Fuel, spark plugs, tires, and all the other shit that needs replacing after a run even if nothing goes wrong.

>>14100548
I could listen all day to engineers explaining tech with a German accent.

>>14100548
Isn't it so much power the engine breaks every time

How much horsepower in a rocket ship though

>>14100979
Didn't think of tires.. I can see how those huge special compound things would cost more than my corolla's tires. Probably more than my corolla itself.

Still though. I didn't think money was good enough in drag racing to fund that sort of operating cost.

>>14101043
If you want to make a small fortune in racing, you start off with a big fortune.

>>14101043
>Beer at $4 a pint
>Burgers at $5 each
>$50 entry fee for a stand of 5000
>$200 to run your own car
>All the advertising on the stands

>>14100731

You have to earn different licenses to run those cars at sanctioned strips and in sanctioned competitions. You often start out in lower classes and work you way up like other racing. There are top alcohol rail and funny cars that are similar in design but slower because among other things they don't run nitro. Those cars have around 3,500-4,000 hp and run into the bottom 5s.

>>14101012

Often. It's gotten to the point where teams that want to win engineer a semi-controlled catastrophic failure at the top end because that makes the most power.

>>14101043

Top fuel teams rely heavily on sponsorship to keep going. Straight winnings will rarely keep them profitable.

I just recently went to the NHRA Fall Nationals here at the Texas Motorplex, I forgot how fucking loud they can be, and how they rattle your insides. It is an experience you can not find anywhere else.

>>14100847
they literally strip the engine down to the bare block and rebuild it between every pass. pistons bearings rods crank blower heads gaskets. all of it gets changed every single pass.

My dad used to have a Blown top fuel team when I was a kid and man you dont just hear the horsepower. YOU FEEL IT.

>>14101055
I wish beer was $4 a pint where I lived.

All cool, but a welder at 88 amps is pretty cold

>>14101637
Seems wasteful.

The sponsorship money must be over the fucking top if they're willing to run so close to the edge that they rebuild the car each run. You'd think they could get 95% of the result out while letting the engines last for 3 or 4 passes. Unless the engines get so hot that they don't cool back into a running state or something?

>>14100564
>$350,000 dollars for 4.5 seconds
Well shit.

>>14102533
>95% of the result

That's not the goal though.

>>14100572
AMERICA, FUCK YEAH

>>14101043
Drag racing is a sport for those who love work and hate money.

>>14102701
non americans wouldn't understand

File: download.jpg (13KB, 225x225px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 225x225px

murica

File: 1344712984291.png (63KB, 155x202px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 155x202px

>>14102986

>>14100572
ad people wonder why rednecks pursue this hobby, rich rednecks at the very least

>>14102533
There's no constructors championship you retard.
The sponsors want to sponsor winning teams. If you only give 95% you will not win races.

If feel that the concept of competition is beyond you, just like the ability to tie your own shoe laces.

>>14102533

There is really only a one way they could get more passes out of the current engines. Severely reduce the nitro percentage in the fuel and limit RPMs. The mean piston speed at the top end is huge considering the relatively long stroke cranks and the valvetrain takes a beating too. And the nitro fouls the plugs so the engines are dieseling at the top end and overall the nitro is just extremely tough on the engines. What you'd need is teams running very little or no nitro content and then you'd basically just have top alcohol cars. Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing the maximum nitro content reduced as long as they opened up the rule book to allow teams to run different engine combinations (SOHC or DOHC) and various other power adders such as turbos or nitrous.

>>14100548
lolcantturn

>>14101854
Yeah that's what I was thinking. Imagine a shitty harbour freight welder rigged to the to top of the intake manifold

>>14102533
>The sponsorship money must be over the fucking top
It is.

>>14104015
Not so much in Europe
We only have a few top fuel teams

>>14100572
ain't that some shit

>>14104005
Kek

>>14100849
Dad took me to Summernats when I was a kid. Could feel every exhaust pulse at idle. I clenched my teeth during the chaos of launch, they buzzed in my mouth as the cars passed. Still remember the feeling 27 years later.

Also those night race flames.

>>14100548
5-6 g a at launch .75 g through the traps and -5-7 when they pull the chute. All in under 4 seconds.

0-60 in .2 seconds. In less than its own length 100 mph in .8 after going roughly 60ft.

>>14100655

>bang the limiter

They leave at an idle because they make so much power even then they're right on the edge of breaking traction while still slipping the clutch

>>14106064
Correction: teeth = anus

>>14108543
What?

>>14101016
way way more

>>14108886
Top fuel dragsters don't operate like regular cars, nothing about them. There is no transmission, just several clutch plates. During a run, these clutch plates experience so much energy going through them that they weld themselves together. If a dragster puts too much power down right away it will only spin tires and not go fast. In a toyota corrolla, or any normal car really, the engine idling is producing a handful of horsepowers so you have to rev the shit out of the engine to go real fast. The dragster is making at least a few hundred horsepower at idle, like 500 is the guess from my ass, and because the cars dont weigh anything that is enough power to launch them off the line fasting than anything you've ever driven on public roads. ANd then the engine starts to really go

>>14108954
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/system/system_SSME.html

>37 million horsepower
>burning liquid hydrogen and oxygen
>byproduct of making this 37 million horsepower is water and heat

Rest of the engineering world, defuck are you doing with your time?

>inb4 real replies, obviously this is not a practical way to get to Bingo.

>>14101055
>bring your own beer
>and food
>free parking
>$12 tickets

No gay cars on the track(nothing slower than like 9 fucking seconds) that night but they were letting people drive on the nascar oval for like $10


Going to the races is like the cheapest thing to do