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Drifting a Top Fuel dragster

submitted by SFOGuy

8 years 5 months 2 weeks ago

A Top Fuel dragster is an odd beast. They cover 1000 feet (305 meters) in about 3.7 seconds, reaching 335 mph (539 km/hour)--they don't do a quarter mile anymore because: they are so fast and so out of control, that after after a deadly crash in 2008 (Scott Kalitta, Doug's brother), their course was shortened. The acceleration? 100 mph (160 km/h) in 0.8 seconds---and an average acceleration of 4.0 gs...four times the weight of gravity.

Fuel?
"Due to the relatively slow burn rate of nitromethane, very rich fuel mixtures are often not fully ignited and some remaining nitromethane can escape from the exhaust pipe and ignite on contact with atmospheric oxygen, burning with a characteristic yellow flame. Additionally, after sufficient fuel has been combusted to consume all available oxygen, nitromethane can combust in the absence of atmospheric oxygen, producing hydrogen, which can often be seen burning from the exhaust pipes at night as a bright white flame. In a typical run the engine can consume between 45 litres (12 US gal) and 86.1 litres (22.75 US gal) of fuel during warmup, burnout, staging, and the quarter-mile run" (Wikipedia)

and for that brief run, as it chews through about 4 times more fuel than a 747 at cruise...(12-22 gallons in 3.7 second=3 to 6 gallons of nitromethane during the run)---747 is roughly 3,761 lbs fuel/hour--call it a gallon/second.

Clip was highlighted on Jalopnik...