Power.

[piece-itpete]

I stole this from another site, it's interesting imo:

A Lesson in Acceleration:

*one NHRA top fuel dragster 500 cubic inch hemi engine makes more horsepower than all the cars in the first 4 rows at the daytone 500.

*under full throttle, a top fuel dragster engine consumes 1 gallon of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

*a stock dodge 426 hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger

*with 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger in overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed to into a near-solid form before ignition.

*cylinders run on the verge of hydrolic lock at full throttle.

*at a 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 the atmosheric water vapor by the searing gasses.

*Dual magnetos supply 44amps to each sparkplug. This is the output of an arc-welder in each cylinder

*sparkplug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. after 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of the exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting 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 in pieces or split the block in half.

*In order to exeed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200mph well before half track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

*Dragsters reach over 300mph before you have completed reading this sentence.

*Top fuel engines turn appoximately 540 revolutions from light-to-light.
Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

*The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.

*The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, and the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $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 for you bikers: You are riding your average $250.000 Honda Moto GP bike. 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 RC211V hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph (293 ft/sec). The "tree" goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your wrist cranked hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and whithin 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster spotted you 200 mph and not only caught you, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.


Wow.

Pete