"Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire" Metallica -------------Top fuel dragsters.

TOP FUEL DRAGSTER STATS
One dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows at Daytona.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro per second, (that's about 10 gallons per run!), the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747, but with 4 times the energy volume.

The supercharger takes more power to drive then a stock hemi makes.

Even with nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before ignition.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.

Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug.

This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame front of nitro methane 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.

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 at1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting off it's fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or blow the block in half.

Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the big end of the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronization with the pistons.

To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before 1/2 track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G's.

If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence.

Top Fuel Engines ONLY turn 540 revolutions from start light to finish line.

The redline is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.

To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile. This means that you could be coming across the starting line in your average Lingenfelter powered "twin-turbo" Corvette at 200 mph (on a FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A DEAD STOP in a quarter mile distance!

PERFORMANCE EXAMPLES
0 to 100 MPH in .8 seconds (the first 60 feet of the run)
0-200 MPH in 2.2 seconds (the first 350 feet of the run)
6 g-forces at the starting line (nothing accelerates faster on land)
6 negative g-forces upon deployment of twin ‘chutes at 300 MPH

An NHRA Top Fuel Dragster accelerates quicker than any other land vehicle on earth . . . quicker than a jet fighter plane . . . quicker than the space shuttle.

http://www.pafoa.org/forum/lounge-108/720-acceleration.html

1960 Micro Deluxe, 9.9sec in the quarter mile, lots to admire... the second time I've shown you this bus

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/04/sweet-little-bus-and-whole-lotta-nos.html#links

I didn't get a good pic of the engine the last time, nor did I notice the Moon accelerator pedal.

Electric drag race motorbike, 8 second 155mph

http://www.killacycle.com/

The world of hot rods began with drag racing, then top speed racing at Muroc, El Mirage, etc.. it has come a long way, here's a great website about it

http://classicdragsters.com/main.php

Take the time (about 2 hours) to flip through the photos of the Starbird 50th Annual Rod and Custom Show, look at page two for the black and whites of vintage racing, and for lots of sweet customs, look through the HAMB drags pictures (Via http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ )

Just keep a cold one handy, I never moved for 2 hours while soaking it all in.

Thanks Mr Pontiac for the link, and the photoalbums, keeping the rest of us in car porn is a kind thing to do!

Dodge's 2008 Challenger Super Stock Concept car

11.6 at 113mph. Go to the link for a video and more pictures, a complete write up, etc.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=120457#6

Not just a transmission mechanic, Don's GN is around the 9's in the 1/4

DRW Transmission Specialties, Inc.

10728 Kenney St. Ste. B, Santee, CA 92071

Office phone: (619) 258-4240

http://www.drwtransmission.com/

Mike's $150 dollar 37 Plymouth... still does 13's in the quarter

A friend of his bought this from a backyard in Alpine, and had the intent of a father / son project... so did the son until the marvel of sanding lost its charm.

For 150 bucks it traded hands and was a 1/4 miler at Carlsbad, until that went extinct. Then it was eased into a cruiser engine, a 350... sorry, not a Mopar engine... for ease of gettign to and from car shows and 1/8 th mile drags at Qualcomm... where it made 8 passes due to the lack of participants... in about an hour.

The Hot Rod and Bike Expo was working with Racelegal.com, who are very thin on budget and don't advertise quite as much as you might like... especially when rumors pronounced the demise of Racelegal events due to budget shortfalls in the fall of '05, and all of '06. So today (April 14 '07) only a dozen bikes and cars were there racing before 2pm. Which is when the 67 Camaro took a turn into the K rails, and water barriers. That took a hour and a half to clean up, it took an hour for a flat bed to arrive.... not much reason to hurry when there weren't but a dozen racers waiting to resume racing.

One sweet Dart

This is a beaut of a flame job, photo from http://www.speedzonemagazine.com/zones/motorzone/07/mopars/event%20page.htm
I came across this Dart at http://www.moparmax.com/events/2007/ii_4-hemi-2.html which has a nice smoky burnout pic.

More on drag racing, frozen lake style

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2007/02/funcicle.html

for a write up and pictures that describe it well, and here for his video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8izTNTobpY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fiowahawk%2Etypepad%2Ecom%2F

Here for more http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/02/race-car-with-studded-tires-frozen-lake.html#links

Motown Misslie, a legendary car, fastest 1971 Prostocker, 9.48 sec

http://www.quartermilestones.com/raymann.htm for excellent dragstrip photo's of the 60's and early 70's

Record setter, cool car guy, Don Garlits

I used to watch a LOT of drag racing, all of the 1996 and 1997 NHRA top fuel and funny car championships particularly, and during those seasons a lot of car show programming was getting onto cable tv, the Speed Channel or ESPN 2 I think... getting back on topic, Big Daddy Don Garlits was a feature of one of the show, and the show would spotlight whichever car or truck Don would choose as his "pick of the week".

At the time I had a 69 Superbee, and remember how Don told about the features of the car and how they came about due to the NASCAR evolution of the racecars in 68-69. He pointed out the slight ducktail on the rear edge of the trunklid, the smoothed rear window (in contrast to the 69 Charger's), the wide hips on the sides of the car above the rear tires, and he might have talked about the down force caused by the upward sloping gas tank that used a airflow dynamic to cause suction under the car.

All 4 of these had an additive effect of increasing traction by pushing and pulling the rear of the car down onto the tires for designed aero effects that were incorporated into the looks of the car, while increasing traction. Nice detailed description from the expert that was there from the pioneering days of drag racing, and still is the most recognized drag racer, record setter, PR personality, and frankly- all around nice guy. He is now part of the contributing writers for Hemmings Muscle Cars, that I subscribe to and recommend to you as well, and he's a very good writer.

I won't be filling pages, which would be easy, telling you his current and historical racing life, but want to show a few things you may not know about him, and the Dodge truck that bears his name. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a thing on the net... big surprise since I try for the rare and unusual that you are more likely to be interested in. But I'm going to keep trying, and wanted to post about that truck. 1996 full size Dodge, with an animated looking rat waving a finish flag, if I remember correctly.

By the way, just to blow your mind, http://www.garlits.com/ had a few items that really are knockouts.

Born in 1932.

In 2001 (at 69 years young) he returned to racing, and ran a top fueler at 4.720 and 303, then was also voted the #1 drag racer of the last 50 years, in 2002 he pulled a top fuel race car of his out of his museum... museum.... for pete's sake he used a museum piece for this next one.... and nailed a career best 318 mph and 4.76 second pass.

In a museum car.

Because he's that freaking good, and this was at the NHRA US Nationals.

Kinda makes you want to be that effing cool when you retire don't it? That's just inspirational.

He's got grandkids for krineoutloud, and did 323 mph in the Gator Nats in 2002. Think that over. First guy to manhandle a dragster to 170, 180, 200, 240, 250, 260, and 270. Pioneer is putting it mildly, trail blazer of the 1320 is more apt.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Garlits

He was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1989 as the sole representative of drag racing. Probably for the redesign and paradigm shift of the top fuel dragsters layout, which he realized made more sense to drive if you're not going to die from an engine explosion when the motor's behind you instead of just in front of you. When you're doing better than 200mph, all the broken parts and flaming fuel just want to clobber and burn you in the original slingshot design, Don redesigned the way all dragsters are built by getting the engine behind the driver 'cause it's just better to be upwind of all that destruction 'ya know... moving away from it instead of into it.

In 1987, Garlits' record-breaking 300 m.p.h. car, "Swamp Rat XXX" was inducted into, and enshrined at The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Best part, he fired it up and gave them a cacklefest of one... at the Smithsonian.

Once, men were allowed to be men... crazy daredevil, 4 motor, 4 wheel drive, rocket powered nuts.

http://www.almar.easynet.be/turbonique.htm has a really good article, and good photos.
http://vales.com/MTM2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12159&ARCHIVE for the best color pics and description of how powerfully enticing this was, it went on go carts (215 mph), cars, boats, etc... strap on 1000 HP, or the full boogie 1500 HP if you clang with big brass notes when you shuffle along.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2006/04/the_real_acme.html

I won't even repost the madness here.... I can't possibly do justice to the sheer machoness of strapping a 1000 hp 760 ft lbs rocket to the rear axle of a dragster and hitting the "fun" button. Trust me, Coop, and iowahawk... read it all, soak it in. Our fathers and grandfathers were effing madmen with motors and we should just drop to one knee in homage the the giants who once walked the USA, racing for the shits and grins of it all.

thanks to http://positiveapeindex.blogspot.com/2006/04/real-acme.html for reminding me about this, and I'll have more on this from my archived books and magazines someday.

http://www.the-rocketman.com/turbonique1.html has 5 photo galleries of bikes, boats, cars, and go karts that had used these.

In August 2007 CarDomain found an original Cougar with a Turbonique still strapped on: http://blog.cardomain.com/blog/2007/08/turbonique.html

For a good long write up: http://garagemagazine.com/archive-the-real-acme/

Dual engine diggers, and dual rear tire dragsters

For more dual engine and or dual rear tire dragsters see: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/07/chrisman-cannon-hustler-exp-1961.html

I bet the price are 10 times this now, cool ad

6 second quarter mile Superbird

Torque and twist

When drag racing counts on aerodynamics, the choice is obvious

One of the singularly coolest Pro Mod race cars, and those Pro Mod are the coolest race cars.

This was called the Texas Big Bird, it raced from around 99 to 2003. The website they had is dead.


It would go from a dead stop to 235MPH in 6.2 seconds. While it was a one of a kind pure drag car that had no street car parts - it was built to look like a Petty Blue (Richard Petty's colors when he raced a Superbird) and was featured in four magazines.




A few years ago -- a street Superbird was used to tow the Texas Big Bird to the starting line as a promotion stunt.

http://www.oldhippie.com/news2006/2006may.htm also featured in the Aug 97 High Performance Mopar.

Bob Glidden

images via http://voiture-jaune.tumblr.com/

Bill Stephens in the Jan 2001 Drag Racer magazine said the following "Bob Gidden's greatest racing accomplishment, besides winning all those races and all those championships, was his ability to make a winning race car out of a Pinto, and a Fairmont, and to really show off, a Plymouth Arrow."

Love that quote.
The Pinto was built by Gapp and Roush.

http://www.nhra.com/50th/top50/B_Glidden04.html has his bio, placing him number 4 of the all time greatest top 50 drag racers. Placing at nubers 1-3 respectively are Garlits, Force and Prudhomme

"Glidden, who amassed a record 16,035 points and lowered the national record to 8.59, fielded two winning cars that year: The first was his tried-and-true Ford Pinto that carried him to victories at the season-opening Winternationals and Cajun Nationals, and the second was his famed Ford Fairmont, with which he won the Summernationals and finished the season undefeated in national event competition. When all was said and done, Glidden had tied Don Prudhomme for most national event wins in a season with seven, including five straight, and had broken the Pro Stock single-season record of six set by Jenkins in 1972.
In recalling his Summernationals triumph, which he attained by defeating the Lombardo-driven Jenkins Monza in the final (8.55 to 8.71), Glidden said, "That was by far the biggest spread that I ever had over the guys in any race that I've ever ran. We didn't clinch the points title mathematically until just before [Indianapolis], but mentally, we felt that we had won the title right there in Englishtown."
Glidden retired his undefeated Fairmont in favor of a Plymouth Arrow in 1979 and lost only three times all year. After finishing the 1978 season with seven straight victories, Glidden opened the 1979 season with a victory at the Winternationals and didn't lose a round until June, when a foul start in the second round of the Mile-High Nationals snapped his streak at 14 races and 50 rounds. That season, Glidden won seven national events, went undefeated in divisional competition, and earned the maximum number of points available at four national events by qualifying No. 1, setting low e.t. and top speed, and winning the race. He did the same thing at all four of his divisional races. "

A couple favorite pics, how about this dragstrip pic?

An old advert is like an old muscle car, just time travelling