The words below have floated around the Internet for years. We’ve updated.
Watching a dragster hit speeds of approximately 300 mph in the quarter mile is hard to fathom. Even more difficult is understanding what it takes to reach that speed in just over four city blocks (1,320 feet). Here are a few numbers to help:
- A single Top Fuel dragster’s 500 cubic-inch Hemi V8 makes more power than the first four rows at the Daytona 500.
- Under full throttle, that same engine consumes 11.2 gallons of nitro methane fuel per second. By comparison, a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate, but with 25% less energy being produced.
- A stock Hemi V8, like the one you’d find under the hood of a Dodge Challenger R/T, can’t produce enough power to drive a Top Fuel dragster’s supercharger.
- That supercharger moves 3,000 cubic feet of air per minute on overdrive, compressing the air/fuel mixture into a near-solid form before ignition.
- At full throttle, the dragster’s cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
- The flame front temperature for nitro methane when running at its stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture is 7,050º F.
- Nitro methane burns yellow. The white flame that appears above the exhaust stacks at night races is raw burning hydrogen that has been dissociated from the atmosphere by the searing heat of the exhaust gasses.
- Dual magnetos supply 44 amps of electrical energy to each spark plug, the equivalent of having an arc welder in each cylinder.
- Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass.
- At the halfway point in a run, the engine is dieseling from the combination of in-cylinder compression and the glow of exhaust valves that reach 1,400º F. The only way to shut down the engine is to cut off fuel flow.
- Should the spark momentarily fail early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders, and explodes with enough force to blow cylinder heads off the block in many pieces or split the block in half.
- Dragsters reach more than 300 mph in less time than it takes to read this sentence.
- In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must have an average acceleration of more than 4 Gs.
- In order for the dragster to reach 200 mph well before half-distance, its launch acceleration must approach 8 Gs.
- Top Fuel engines complete approximately 540 revolutions from light to light, and must survive only 900 revolutions under load if you include the burnout.
- A Top Fuel engine has a 9,500-rpm redline.
- As of this writing, Tony Schumacher holds the elapsed time record for a Top Fuel dragster at 4.428 seconds. He also holds the NHRA National speed record for a Top Fuel dragster with a trap speed of 336.15 mph.
Still having trouble putting a Top Fuel dragster’s speed into context? Imagine this:
You are driving a twin-turbo Lingenfelter Corvette Z06 when you see a Top Fuel dragster staged and ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip located more than a mile up the road. It will launch just as you pass. With the advantage of a flying start, you accelerate hard and blast across the starting line at a true 200 mph. At that instant, the “tree” goes green for the dragster, and he launches after you.
Despite the fact that you have your foot buried in the firewall, you hear the unmistakable — and painful — whine of the dragster’s supercharger. Within three seconds, it catches and passes you, and beats you to the finish line, a mere quarter-mile from where you passed him going 200 mph. From a standing start, the dragster spotted you 200 mph, caught and passed you within 1,320 feet from where you both started this race. That’s acceleration!
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