Forgot how badass top fuel/funny cars are

I was at the Englishtown installment of the NHRA Supernationals this past weekend, as the first part of my bachelor party. None of my groomsmen had ever been (two know jack about cars), and I hadn't been in awhile, and they were all hell-bent on doing something other than getting drunk and ending up at a "gentlemen's club," although that may or may not have happened, too haha.

I remembered it was loud. I forgot that it was so loud you can't see straight and it'll make you slightly nauseous. My best man's reaction was the best: he had kind of a primal animal reaction to it, his brain went into "fight or flight" mode, and became borderline hysterical, it was quite entertaining. The other three just had their jaws open to the floor after the first two fuel cars ran.

So we watched all the fuel cars qualify (best was 3.81 @ 323 mph, IIRC), then the funny cars. Then we went into the pits and watched the mechanics tear the engines down. The most stunning thing is the con-rods: had to have been 2 inches across and an inch deep, solid. Valves the size of tennis balls. Four clutch discs, each 1/2" thick, that are still smoking when they remove them. I guess when an engine makes 8000 horsepower, you need that sort of thing!

I watched a little bit of that the other day, and it was amazing how the funny cars didn't raise their front ends at all. They just hooked up and moved.

The extreme forces seen in a top fuel car (or any pro level drag car for that matter) always blow me away. Drag racing being a lamer sport or not, you HAVE to respect the levels they achieve with those engines.

Long time fan, doing anything with 8k hp is impressive in a carlike thing. They don't pull the wheels because the weight isn't as rearward as you'd think and they have no suspension travel, so they don't have the same antisquat stuff you see on most other drag cars.

It's all severely impressive, a 2. something on the Richter scale too. When you start thinking about one of the cylinders making as much as a whole Veyron, and that the drivers are the fastest accelerating people ever, you start to realize that doing anything other than going straight would be damn near impossible.

I have watched my friend Chris Mark run 6.80 1/4 mile runs in an Outlaw 10.5 car. He told me that after 5-6 passes it feels like you have taken a shellacing.

i've also heard that if you took a regular old F1 car going 200mph, and had a top fuel car launch at the moment it crossed the start line, the top fuel car would beat it to the end of the 1/4, due to how fast they hit 200mph.

^It would be some super simple math to check.

But I'm lazy.

In reply to z31maniac:

Not that hard.

200mph = 293.3 feet per second.

So to go 1/4 mile, it takes 4.5 sec. So if the drag racer can finish in less than that....

^Yeah, I specifcally said it was simple, I just wasn't going to do it.

It makes me wonder how many tenths I'm losing on an AutoX because of my lack of launching skills.

scardeal wrote: It makes me wonder how many tenths I'm losing on an AutoX because of my lack of launching skills.

I've found that it's not as much as you'd think, mostly because (at least at MN autox's) that they like to launch you immediately into a corner/element. IDK why, I have 0 time to get into 2nd before i'm already on the brakes. Annoying.

another interesting way to think of them.... since I don't know the actual rpm at launch nor the avg rpm for the whole pass I'll just use an assumed 8000 rpm for the clutch dump to the kill sw (could be more.. if so the math is the same).... works out to ~ 550 actual revolutions

wbjones wrote: another interesting way to think of them.... since I don't know the actual rpm at launch nor the avg rpm for the whole pass I'll just use an assumed 8000 rpm for the clutch dump to the kill sw (could be more.. if so the math is the same).... works out to ~ 550 actual revolutions

That's actually REALLY kinda neat to think about. crank turns 360* 550 times, car is doing 300+ and is a quarter mile away. All in 3 seconds.

i/ve been looking for this video i saw on youtube where someone was driving some passenger car in one lane and a pro drag car (cant remember if funny or dragster) in the other lane\

they left at the same time, but the pro car only accelerated for like .5 a second. anyone seen this? i forgot to 'save' it...

I'm not that much of a fan either but I am always impressed. 3.1@323!?!!!!! Is this a full qtr mile or the new shorter track that I heard about? Either way, holy e36m3. Here's the Dargster Factoids thing that floated around awhile back, for the benefit of them that hain't seen it.

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 1 1/2 gallons of nitro methane 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 nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F. Nitro methane 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.

They also have to take into account the amount of twist in the crank when setting ignition timing on a run.

mndsm wrote:

scardeal wrote: It makes me wonder how many tenths I'm losing on an AutoX because of my lack of launching skills.

I've found that it's not as much as you'd think, mostly because (at least at MN autox's) that they like to launch you immediately into a corner/element. IDK why, I have 0 time to get into 2nd before i'm already on the brakes. Annoying.

locally they do the same thing quite often... the reason is that the straight away / drag strip starts are awfully hard on clutches

Jay_W wrote: I'm not that much of a fan either but I am always impressed. 3.1@323!?!!!!! Is this a full qtr mile or the new shorter track that I heard about?

1000', not 1320

That doth make the trap speed ever so more unseemly...10mph slower than Kalitta's run with more'n a football field less runway to get there...

I have only been to the local 1/8th on Jet car night, free tickets at that.

wbjones wrote:

Jay_W wrote: I'm not that much of a fan either but I am always impressed. 3.1@323!?!!!!! Is this a full qtr mile or the new shorter track that I heard about?

1000', not 1320

And there is no run as quick as that, although thay are in the 3.X range.

Someone recently did some math with a torque sensor. They think closer to 10k hp now.

neon4891 wrote: I have only been to the local 1/8th on Jet car night, free tickets at that.

even if drag racing isn't your thing, you still need to get to an NHRA national event at least once before you die. the fuel cars make the Pro Stock cars that are doing 200+ mph in a the 1/4 mile look like they are boring econoboxes. there is simply nothing you will ever experience in your life that is as intense or as insane as being near the finish line of a Top Fuel run..

madmallard wrote: i/ve been looking for this video i saw on youtube where someone was driving some passenger car in one lane and a pro drag car (cant remember if funny or dragster) in the other lane\ they left at the same time, but the pro car only accelerated for like .5 a second. anyone seen this? i forgot to 'save' it...

I haven't seen the video, but I'm sure that's true. If you watch drag racing, very often the car will go up in tire smoke within one second of hitting the throttle. The driver will often just shut it down at that point if the other car is long gone. The car still gets through the lights in less than 10 seconds, but it's only going 80 or 90mph. The trap speed is slow, but the ET is still less than any production street car could do.

Even if you're not a racing fan, to see a Top Fuel or Funny Car in person is something that should be on everyone's bucket list. They're unbelievable.

In reply to Twin_Cam:

Experiencing Top Fuel live is something every gearhead should do at least once, like hearing an Indycar qualifying at Indy. TV just doesn't do it.

novaderrik wrote:

neon4891 wrote: I have only been to the local 1/8th on Jet car night, free tickets at that.

even if drag racing isn't your thing, you still need to get to an NHRA national event at least once before you die. the fuel cars make the Pro Stock cars that are doing 200+ mph in a the 1/4 mile look like they are boring econoboxes. there is simply nothing you will ever experience in your life that is as intense or as insane as being near the finish line of a Top Fuel run..

I agree that an NHRA national event should be on everyones list, but purely from a cool race car standpoint, the IHRA mountain motor pro stocks are the coolest thing in the world. There is really nothing like the sound of 800 cubic inches running towards 8000 rpm. Nitro cars are pure thunder, promod pure music.