The Definition of Acceleration

[Preen59]

Yeah read it before...

A few other things..

The fuel flow is actually higher than 1.7:1 as they use fuel flow on overlap to cool the exhaust valves and spark plugs. They run a VERY much different camshaft and cam timing to an alcohol engine, for instance the Herbert 70 cam in our iron engine is 320deg total duration.

More info when i get back from the eating of the food.

[Buller_Scott]

we're waiting for you to finish eating dammit!

[Preen59]

we're waiting for you to finish eating dammit!

A Nitro engine can actually detonate (an uncontrolled explosion of the charge before ignition) at idle if it is too lean. This is more relevant to early fuel engines as the newer engines run much richer at idle.

Nitro engines can detonate at the bottom of the stroke.

Detonation can literally split a block in half at WOT. And at a minimum it will hammer or even squirt the bearings out the side.

Our engine has 0.012" piston to bore clearance (the piston is .3 of a mm smaller than the bore). You can actually rattle the pistons around in the bore when it is cold. Modern engines run a similar clearance.

Our fuel engine runs 120+ psi oil pressure at idle cold and about 100-110 hot. Modern fuel engines run up to about 130 at idle and about 180 on a pass.

Top Fuel drivers cannot wear contact lenses. The acceleration causes them to rotate onto the back of their eyes.

[Preen59]

Just thought of some more..

Every rotating and reciprocating component is lifed.

-Rods (aluminium) are measured for squash. They actually get compressed by the force of the compression and power strokes. They are tossed after (usually) about 8 passes or when they get too short, which ever comes first. The the journal end is also measure for ovality.

-Pistons are measured for crown sag (the centre of the crown is pushed down for the same reason as the rods). They are tossed after about the same amount of passes as the rods or once the sag reaches a certain point, once again which ever comes first.

-Pistons and rods are put into sets of similar lengths and the number of passes is always documented.

-All parts are noted if they were used on a pass when something failed. Eg: banged the blower, over rev etc.

-Nitromethane is heavier than water (about 1.2kg per litre at room temp). It also expands and contracts with heat at a great rate. For this reason, fuel has to be mixed using a hydrometer and the percentage temperature corrected. It cannot be mixed by volume (We do this with our fuel aswell).

-The fuel mix is Nitro and Methanol. The indicated percentage is always the percentage of nitro, not methanol.

[Treza360]

Now that's freaky Al. I actually pulled the txt file I had of this out of my iPod the other day (i've been looking for it for ages and forgot that I put it on there). I was thinking about posting this up but had forgotten about it again.
Fun times.
Cheers,
Trent

[gregozedobe]

Preeny,

can you clarify for me something I think I read somewhere a while back ?

It was along the lines of 1/4 mile drags being phased out and replaced with 1/8 mile drags in the US as the top cars were going TOO fast on the full 1/4 mile distance, accidents were happening too often and they were too dangerous (because the dragsters were travelling too fast at the end of the 1/4).

TIA

[Treza360]

Preeny,

can you clarify for me something I think I read somewhere a while back ?

It was along the lines of 1/4 mile drags being phased out and replaced with 1/8 mile drags in the US as the top cars were going TOO fast on the full 1/4 mile distance, accidents were happening too often and they were too dangerous (because the dragsters were travelling too fast at the end of the 1/4).

TIA

As far as I'm aware this is true (Preen will confirm I'm sure). My understanding is that it's not that the cars are too fast, it's that the cars are too fast for the track.

From what I've heard most of the strips in the US have not been upgraded since 70s and no new ones have been built or something like that and therefore don't have the runoffs and area required for the current dragsters.

On the plus side though I believe that this gives us the fastest drags in the world.

Cheers,
Trent

[Preen59]

All nitro classes in the big show (Full Throttle Series) so, Funny Car and Top Fuel have been brought back to 1000 foot. 1/4 mile being 1320 feet.

This was after Scott Kalitta was killed at Englishtown when he fireballed and went into the safety fence, the car exploding.

Unfortunate but that's the way these things go. I reckon they should have made the tyres smaller rather than going back to 1000 foot, as do a lot of other people. The "Dog Food People" didn't see it that way.

[VW Convert]

-Rods (aluminium) are measured for squash. They actually get compressed by the force of the compression and power strokes. They are tossed after (usually) about 8 passes or when they get too short, which ever comes first. The the journal end is also measure for ovality.

8 passes at around 5 seconds per pass, add in a bit of idling time and burnouts, that's a lifespan of only a minute or two!

When are the drags next on at Eastern Creek Chris? I'm hanging out for another earth shattering experience.

Cheers

George

[Preen59]

As far as I'm aware this is true (Preen will confirm I'm sure). My understanding is that it's not that the cars are too fast, it's that the cars are too fast for the track.

From what I've heard most of the strips in the US have not been upgraded since 70s and no new ones have been built or something like that and therefore don't have the runoffs and area required for the current dragsters.

On the plus side though I believe that this gives us the fastest drags in the world.

Cheers,
Trent

Correct. They keep going faster and the runoff area hasn't been increased. The drag racers in europe are still running the full 1320 i'm pretty sure. You don't hear about that much but it's pretty big over there.


George, there's a meet as WSID on Boxing Day, but they're having Jet cars there which don't exactly interest me (Sound like **** and smell like kerosene..), so we won't be heading down for that.

Next REAL meet is:

2010 Summernationals

Friday, 12 February 2010
Saturday, 13 February 2010

http://www.wsid.com.au/event.asp?Id=1145