Posted: 11/25/2003 8:53:56 AM EDT
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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 dragster engine consumes 1½ 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 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster 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 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. * 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 miles per hour 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 US $1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta). 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 past 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 1320 foot long race course. That, folks, is acceleration |
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not accelleration related...but more interesting facts about high performance mechanical devices. ripped from coop's amazing facts website, but originally published by rocketdyne. Rocketdyne's Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSMEs) operates at greater temperature extremes than any mechanical system in common use today. The liquid hydrogen fuel is -423 degrees Fahrenheit, the second coldest liquid on Earth. When the hydrogen is burned with liquid oxygen, the temperature in the engine's combustion chamber reaches + 6000 degrees Fahrenheit - that's higher than the boiling point of Iron. The maximum equivalent horsepower developed by the three SSMEs is just over 37 million horsepower. The energy released by three of Rocketdyne's Space Shuttle Main Engines is equivalent to the output of 37 Hoover Dams. Although not much larger than an automobile engine, the SSME high-pressure fuel turbopump generates 100 horsepower for each pound of its weight, while an automobile engine generates about one-half horsepower for each pound of its weight. Even though Rocketdyne's SSME weighs one-seventh as much as a locomotive engine, its high-pressure fuel pump alone delivers as much horsepower as 28 locomotives, while its high-pressure oxidizer pump delivers the equivalent horsepower for 11 more. If water, instead of fuel, were pumped by the three Space Shuttle Main Engines, an average family-sized swimming pool could be drained in 25 seconds. The SSME high-pressure fuel turbopump main shaft rotates at 37,000 rpm compared to about 3,000 rpm for an automobile operating at 60 mph. The discharge pressure of an SSME high-pressure fuel turbopump could send a column of liquid hydrogen 36 miles in the air. The Space Shuttle flies about 200 miles (330 km) above the Earth's surface (equivalent to roughly half the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco). In contrast, geostationary (stationary with respect to the Earth's surface) communications satellites have to be lofted approximately 21,500 miles (35,800 km) above the Earth's surface, and the Apollo spacecraft were approximately 227,000 miles (378,000 km) above the Earth's surface when they reached the Moon. NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, is the heaviest spacecraft ever deployed by a Space Shuttle. Each of the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters burns 5 tons of propellant per second. A Space Shuttle and its boosters ready for launch are the same height as the Statue of Liberty but weigh almost three times as much. The Space Shuttle main engine weighs 1/7th as much as a train engine, but delivers as much horsepower as 39 train engines. It only takes the Space Shuttle about 8 minutes to accelerate to its orbital speed of more than 17,000 miles per hour. |
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lol, db! i suggest you write to rocketdyne. btw, a rocketdyne engineer once told me the exhaust plume and sounds of the static tests of the ssme can be seen and heard from three states. dunno if that's true...just scuttlebut from back when i was working on parts for the turbo pumps. |
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One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500. well, in NASCARS defense, the Daytona 500 is a restrictor plate race, the cars are limited to 355ci and are naturally aspirated * A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster supercharger. not with that kind of compression........well, not with the new hemi anyway * The red-line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm. figured it was higher than that * Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! figured it would be alot higher than that * Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1½ gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced. no nitropropane? pussies |
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Some trivia about freefall speeds. If you read the whole article he figures they'll go 350mph this year.[:D] Just an aside. Our equipment and bodies are not built to handle deployment at these speeds. A premature deployment is not an option. The question has arisen about how fast people can really go. Well, I have thought about that a lot and a couple years ago I started on a project to find out for myself. It has progressed to a new skydiving event. Anyone who thinks they can go pretty fast is welcome to come to Eloy at the end of the month and show their stuff. December 27 - 29 is the second annual Arizona Speed Trials. You get three jumps from 13,000 to go as fast as you can. ($13 jumps the whole boogie, and a small fee for the Skycorder rental) Fastest time wins. Speeds are measured from 11,000 AGL through 5,000 AGL. The record to beat from last year is [red]321 MPH[/red], held by Charles Bryan (wearing MY suit and MY helmet >:-/) I am told a show called The Extremists will be out to cover the event. [url]http://www.afn.org/skydive/sta/dta/speed.txt[/url] |
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I do question this sentence. "* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1½ gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced." What the hell do they mean by "energy being produced" ?? Did they mean "work" instead of "energy" ? |
| a lot of these top fuel cars and whatnot run really rough at idol for two reasons. 1) they have huge ass valves (no kidding, but the more minor of the two actually), and 2) the cam shaft is not concentric. it is actually ground out of phase. there is so much torque applied at launch and during the run that the cam shaft twists back into phase. the difference can be as much as 15-20 degrees i believe. |
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Quoted: I do question this sentence. "* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1½ gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced." What the hell do they mean by "energy being produced" ?? Did they mean "work" instead of "energy" ? No, they would mean energy, but the fuel for the jet is less dense so that it *should* produce less. That's just plain sense. |