THAT was a great, very interesting video. Honestly, I had never seriously considered the amazing engineering that goes into a 12K horsepower engine and a vehicle take can run a 3 second quarter mile at over 330mph. Amazing!
The amount of fuel dumping is just crazy to me. Cool video, i will never forget my first time to see them make a pass in person in memphis, literally shook the stands. Ive never heard they registered as a 2.3 quake, but it makes sense and I’ll have to show this to pops, he will love it.
Gonna go kiss the Bob Glidden engraved piston goodnight
If you stand near them when they launch, it vibrates your hair LOL. Also, the thing that blew my mind to pieces was when I did the math and realized that between launch and finish line, the cylinders only fire about 250 times.
Great video, love me some top fuel! I tell everyone to experience at least once, even the non-car or non-drag fans. Just an insane display of engineering and power.
GREAT VIDEO! Nitro methane is funny stuff. In addition to carrying some of its own oxygen, it is a very slow burning fuel. In gas engines, by the time the exhaust valve opens, the temperature and pressure have fallen to the point they don't really impart any more force to the crank. On a top fueler, the piston is still being pushed down even when the exhaust vale is open.
By law, nitro-methane can only be shipped in 55 gallon barrels, maximum. Back in the '50's they shipped in train tanker cars. A couple of them self-detonated. The shell of the tank cars were find _miles_ from the site of the explosion, and that was the end of that.
For some folks, nitromethane was not enough. In the fifties and sixties several people experimented with adding hydrazine. I'll just pause, here, for those who know their chemistry, to let their panic subside. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it exploded, and after awhile the practice was outlawed.
The power of nitromethane is wild. Rc engines make over 1hp with .15ci and 30k rpm, if I remember the numbers correctly from my younger days. We set a puddle on fire during the day and couldn't see the fire spreading towards the oxy/acetyl tanks!
I remember Hydrazine., that was the stuff they started using during the nitro ban NHRA put on because it was too dangerous or so the story goes. Lol Nitro is nothing compared to that stuff.
I remember Hydrazine., that was the stuff they started using during the nitro ban NHRA put on because it was too dangerous or so the story goes. Lol Nitro is nothing compared to that stuff.
Right lol...lets put rocket fuel in a race car...hell yeah lol. N2H4 iirc
I did a presentation on CH3NO2 in gen chem years ago in college...the class about shit as did the prof when it was all about racing and i played a video of a TF car on the throttle vs an everyday car