Got this in an email from a car crazy buddy, just had to share -
Some Interesting Top Fuel Dragster Facts:

One dragster’s 500 cubic inch Hemi makes more horsepower than the first 8 rows at Daytona.
Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro per second; 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 than a stock Hemi makes.
Even with nearly 3,000 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 nitromethane measures 7,050 degrees Fahrenheit.
Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flames seen above the stacks at night are raw burning hydrogen, disassociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gasses.
Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ½ way, the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of the exhaust valves at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The engine can only shut down by cutting off its fuel flow.
If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in those cylinders and then explodes with a force than 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 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G’s. But, in reaching 200 mph well before ½ track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G’s.
If all the equipment is paid off, the crew works for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1,000.00 per second.
Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence.
Top Fuel engines ONLY turn 540 revolutions from light to light.
The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm
To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.477 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 200mph (on a FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A DEAD STOP in a quarter mile distance!
Each fuel pump consumes the equivalent of 30 horsepower, which is roughly the power rating of the first air cooled Volkswagen Beetles, or a little more than twice the horsepower added by the electric motor in the Honda Insight hybrid
Each fuel pump flows as much as 1.2 gallons per second at 530 psi.
At top engine speed, the exhaust gases escaping from the open headers produce about 800 pounds of downforce.
The massive foil over the rear wheels produces much more downforce, peaking at around 12,000 lbf when the car reaches a speed of about 325 mph.
The pressure produced by the supercharger is limited to 45.5 maximum boost (in PSI) at wide-open throttle.
Oil pressure is somewhere around 160/170 lb during the run, 200 lb at start up, but actual figures differs between teams.
Fuel is injected by a constant flow injection system. There is an engine driven mechanical fuel pump and about 42 fuel nozzles. The pump can flow 92 gallons/minute at 8000 rpm and 500 PSI fuel pressure. In general 10 injectors are placed in the throttle horn above the supercharger, 16 in the intake manifold and two per cylinder in the cylinder head.
Power output of these engines is most likely somewhere between 6000 and 8000 horsepower. This would suggest a torque output of 3760-4980 lb-ft.

Every year the NHRA throws some obstacle in their way to slow them down and those genius's they call crew chiefs find a way to go faster and quicker.This past year they lowered the nitro to 85%.Top fuel dragsters get to 100 MPH in less than a second and,on the average good run will reach 260MPH in the 1/8th mile.
Now take Funny Cars.They are no more than a front engine dragster with a shorter wheelbase,more weight and probably the hardest car of all to drive.Yet they(John Force)for a short had held the speed record at a higher speed than the top fuel cars.
I have no doubt that if left unrestricted for one season the crew chiefs would have their cars into the low 4 second bracket with speeds approaching 355MPH.

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#1112
Question my ability,question my intelligence,never question my integrity!

First off, thank you bruno for that great reading. I've been around drag racing all my life and there was stuff in there I hadn't heard before.

Second, if you've never been to a professional (NHRA Powerade Series) race to see these monsters run, you owe it to yourself to go once, even if you don't follow drag racing. There's no way to describe the feeling you get in your chest when these things launch from the starting line. Simply awesome! Oh, and don't forget your ear protection, and that's no joke.

I was at Maple Grove a few years ago and every time the fuel cars ran they set off my car shock alarm in the parking lot.They'll break the wax loose in your ears,and being in a crowd is no protection from the sound.If you are at a track like Atco where you can get closer to the starting line the exhaust from these cars can blow you away from the fence.The exhaust is so powerful that if these cars lose a cylinder they will swerve towards the side they lose the cylinder on,due only to the exhaust.

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#1112
Question my ability,question my intelligence,never question my integrity!
87drivetrain http://fieroaddiction.com/SBCTa.html

Great post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOcAI5n_WqY&mode...