Does anyone know the bore and stroke of a T/F or F/C engine? My son got an autographed piston from Scott Palmers T/F dragster last weekend. I compared it to a stock 454 piston and the bore is larger on a 454, must be stroker motors?

In the NHRA rule book, 2004 version, maximum displacement is 500 cu. in. and there is a minumum of 490 cu. in. It also spells out two valves per cylinder, specific valve angles and lots more RULES as to show what NHRA is famous for, (Bulls**t). This is supposed to be the baddest of the bad... isn't it?

4.5 in. stroke

Here are the specs on the BME Top Fuel Dragster.

>>>>>
Specifications and Component List
engine displacement 500 cubic inches
power 8000 horsepower at
8200 rpm
weight 2150 lbs.
wheelbase 300 in.
engine block Brad Anderson Enterprises, forged aluminum
bore 4.187
stroke 4.500
bearings Clevite
crankshaft Sonny Bryant
connecting rods BME
pistons BME
piston pins BME
piston rings Dana Corporation
oil filter Fram
oil pump System 1
oil pan Copperhead
camshaft Erson
lift and duration BME proprietary
lifters Crane Cams, 1 1/16 in. roller
pushrods IRC
cylinder heads Brad Anderson Enterprises,
billet aluminum
intake valves Victory, titanium
exhaust valve Victory, Inconel
valve springs PSI
rocker arms Brad Anderson Enterprises
supercharger Gibson/Miller
injector assembly Gibson/Miller
fuel pump Waterman, 98 GPM@8000rpm
fuel system BME
hoses and fittings XRP
barrel valve Pete Jackson
ignition MSD Pro Mag 44 (dual)
spark plug wires MSD Super Conductor
spark plugs Autolite
oil Red Line SAE70
Synthetic Racing Oil
fuel Nitromethane
engine and supercharger blankets Taylor
clutch AFT 10 in. dia., 5-disc
bell housing Trick Titanium
reverser Moore Performance
chassis builder Don Long
steering Don Long
wheels Cragar
tires Goodyear Racing Eagles
rear end Chrisman, 12-in. 3.20:1 ratio
brakes Chrisman, carbon/carbon
body fabrication Steve Davis
parachutes Chute Metal
data recorder Race Pak
wiring BME
>>>>>

Emil Dusek:71 SS-502

Originally posted by Harold Sutton:
In the NHRA rule book, 2004 version, maximum displacement is 500 cu. in. and there is a minumum of 490 cu. in. It also spells out two valves per cylinder, specific valve angles and lots more RULES as to show what NHRA is famous for, (Bulls**t). This is supposed to be the baddest of the bad... isn't it? To an extent, yes. If it was unlimited, there would be alot more dead drivers. The tires and track can only take so much.

Double post

Anybody else see Fram Oil filter? No wonder they get torn down every pass. :D

Steve

I would assume the long stroke has to do with the slow burn time of nitromethane. The long stroke takes advantage of this.

Originally posted by Silver69Camaro:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Harold Sutton:
In the NHRA rule book, 2004 version, maximum displacement is 500 cu. in. and there is a minumum of 490 cu. in. It also spells out two valves per cylinder, specific valve angles and lots more RULES as to show what NHRA is famous for, (Bulls**t). This is supposed to be the baddest of the bad... isn't it? To an extent, yes. If it was unlimited, there would be alot more dead drivers. The tires and track can only take so much. </font>[/QUOTE]Exactly right. And after the Darrel Russel incident, they're going to try to slow them down even more.

How in the world do they get 8,000hp out of 500 cubic inches. I mean you see guys with street cars that have 630+ cubes, nice heads, cam, carb, intake, everything and like a 300 shot of nitrous, and they still "only" make like 1,500hp. Somehow the blower multiplys that by over 5 times!? I mean I know every little thing add's up but DAMN! Most people brag about 1hp per cubic inch, but thats 16hp per cubic inch lol.

Originally posted by 19Nova72:
How in the world do they get 8,000hp out of 500 cubic inches. I mean you see guys with street cars that have 630+ cubes, nice heads, cam, carb, intake, everything and like a 300 shot of nitrous, and they still "only" make like 1,500hp. Somehow the blower multiplys that by over 5 times!? I mean I know every little thing add's up but DAMN! Most people brag about 1hp per cubic inch, but thats 16hp per cubic inch lol. A huge amount of forced air, combined with the magic of nitromethane (and lots of it).

Yep, don't know many 'street' cars burning 2 gallons of fuel per second. That's what makes horsepower.

Give me fuel, give me fire.....

"The big advantage of nitromethane is that you can get a lot more power from each explosion inside the engine. Pound for pound, nitromethane is less energetic than gasoline, but you can burn a lot more nitromethane in a cylinder. The net result is more power per stroke. You typically need about 15 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of gasoline, whereas you need only 1.7 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of nitromethane. This means that, compared to gasoline, you can pump about 8 times more nitromethane into a cylinder of a given volume and still get complete combustion."

Copied from www.howstuffworks.com. (http://www.howstuffworks.com.) Full text here. (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question642.htm)

I've heard nitro makes or has it's own oxygen, is that true? Wasn't it orginal designed as a "rocket" fuel?

Love the way those top fuel and a/fuel cars sound.

Nitro is a "monopropellant" which is to say it does not need extra oxygen to burn. I have no idea what the chemistry behind that is.

How many of us first used Nitromethane in our '60's Cox .049 glow-plug airplanes?

How do they get 8000 hp from 500 cubes? Don't forget that these engine don't have to hold together for 100,000 miles or even one mile. It's pretty much a one shot deal, with the engine torn down between every run. It's all out, everything on the edge. Nothing is held back. I doubt any of them could sustain that level of output for more than a few seconds.

When it comes to nitro motors, here's the deal: take everything you know about gas engines, and throw it out the window. Nitro is a completely different animal.

Do the math: they run for 4.5 seconds and spin up to about 8 grand. That's 133 revs per second for 4.5 seconds at top rpm's. During the run, the engine makes ONLY 600 revolutions. Add 150 for a burnout on a throttle stop and you have an engine that's torn down after only 750 revolutions. Other than the obvious wear and tear, that would be like overhauling your daily driver after you'd started it and let it warm up in the driveway for one minute.
There was a show on Discovery a few months back and I think that the most impressive thing on it was where they showed the fuel flow rate. They had a clear glass cylinder hooked up to a pump and the fuel pouring thru it was incredible. That was at idle. Full throttle was unbelievable! At full throttle - you can't tip a bucket over and move a gallon of fuel that fast. With the 60 lbs of boost they typically run and the amount of fuel they're pushing thru, they're on the verge of hydraulic lockdown in all 8 holes ALL THE TIME!
I read an article in National Dragster a few years ago about the blowers. There's apparently only one or two shops that build all of the huffers for all the TF's and FC's. This guy used a huge electric motor with several stages of gearing for torque amplification connected to a flywheel what weighed over a ton. He spins the blower to about 12 grand, then measures boost while it's spinning down on that big flywheel. His comment was that a NASCAR engine at top power doesn't make enough horsepower to spin a TF or FC blower up to 8 grand.
Anybody that races regularly on a circuit where these guys show up will tell you that it's mostly for show since they blow up so often, but boy, what a show! The ground shaking under your feet when you're 25 feet away will put a horsepower needle in your arm - or at least it did for me!

Originally posted by Aaron Kelley:
Wasn't it orginal designed as a "rocket" fuel?
I think it was a dry cleaning fluid, originally. The Germans, in WW2, were the first to use it as a fuel and that could have been in rockets.

Nitro is an oxygen bearing compound - it brings (some) of its own oxygen to the party.

KAA said it best - its all about how much fuel can be completely, or nearly completely, burned.

Somewhere after the 1,000 ft mark most Top Fuel engines are like a gigantic Cox .049 engine - because at that point the plugs are so melted that they are really nothing more than glow plugs.

Neat stuff for sure, and for most of us it is like going to an automotive rodeo - where the wild horse can only somewhat be controlled.

Thomas

CH3NO2 is nitromethanes chemical formula so it has almost 50 percent oxygen in it so will burn by itself upon dissociating like NOS does into O and N at temperature with extra fuel.

Nitro just carry's it's own fuel around with it.

You want to see an explosion, then just add some aluminum metalflake powder, some iron rust and touch it all off!!

Nitromethane is a fuel that is used in racing, particularly in drag racing, to provide more power. When you hear the term "nitro-burning funny car" or "top-fuel dragster", that means that the engine burns nitromethane.

Nitromethane's chemical formula is CH3NO2. For comparison, gasoline is typically C8H18. The oxygen in nitromethane's molecular structure means that nitromethane does not need as much atmospheric oxygen to burn -- part of the oxygen needed to burn nitromethane is carried in the fuel itself.

Here is something to read off the web if intereasted..

You need 14.6 kilograms[1] (http://www.channel1.com/users/graham/MyToyotaPrius/SideBars/Stoichiometric.htm) of air to burn a kilogram of gasoline, and only 1.7 kilograms of air for the same amount of nitromethane to burn. A cylinder can only hold so much air on each stoke, and with that amount of air you can burn 8.7 times more nitromethane than gasoline. By pumping in 8.7 times as much nitromethane per stroke, you get about 2.4 times more power per stroke. Gasoline provides 18,000 BTU/pound (42 MJ/kg). Nitromethane provides 5,000 BTU/pound (12 MJ/kg). [2] (http://www.geocities.com/n2oinjection/page10.htm) The amount of nitromethane also provides some cooling, making the charge a bit denser and increasing power.

The flamefront does not move as quickly in nitromethane as it does in gasoline, meaning that there is not enough time to burn all the nitromethane in the cylinder when the engine is running at high RPM. When the exhaust valve opens, burning nitromethane flows out through the exhaust pipe. That is why Funny Cars and dragsters "spit fire" from their exhaust pipes.

pdq67

8000hp from 500 cu inches
thems white folks magic :D