acceleration

Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
7,253
Country flag
Not really motorcycle related but cool anyway. What is acceleration.


Subject: Acceleration Explained


For those who love numbers, engineers, speed freaks and those who think they have gone too fast at one time or another. This puts Corvette performance in perspective. This article mentions Lingenfelter twin turbo powered Z06.

Read this thru slowly and try to comprehend the amount of force produced in just under 4 seconds! The last paragraph puts it all into perspective !

There are no rockets or airplanes built by any government in the world that can accelerate from a standing start as fast as a Top Fuel Dragster or Funny Car….and that includes any aircraft launched by a catapult from an aircraft carrier. Nothing can compare…..
Description: cid:50879D5778B04CEE85F33F32CA71B4DE@Neil
DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION

One top fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows of stock cars at the Daytona 500.

It takes just 15/100ths (0.15) of a second for all 6,000+ horsepower (some believe 8,000 HP is more realistic - there are no dynomometers capable of measuring) of an NHRA Top Fuel dragster engine to reach the rear wheels.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger.

With 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.
At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture of nitromethane, the flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg F. (Oxy-acetylene on "cut" is 6,300)

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.
Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during one pass. After halfway, the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 deg F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

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

Top fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm.
Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimate $1,000.00 per second.

The current top fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.428 seconds for the quarter mile (11/12/06, Tony Schumacher, at Pomona , CA ). The top speed record is 336.15 mph as measured over the last 66' of the run (05/25/05 Tony Schumacher, at Hebron , OH ).

Putting all of this into perspective:
You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter 'twin-turbo' powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a top fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and pass the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that instant.

The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds, the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him.

Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1,320 foot long race course.

...... and that my friend, is ACCELERATION
 
Alrighty JIm, that settles the question so far of what matters more, high geared slow spin torque or low geared hi spin horsepower. If top fuelers' accelerate much faster the pilots will need pressure suits not to black out and die like the rocket sprinters have. BTW can your no car injector be set up to handle nitro methane?
 
hobot said:
Alrighty JIm, that settles the question so far of what matters more, high geared slow spin torque or low geared hi spin horsepower. If top fuelers' accelerate much faster the pilots will need pressure suits not to black out and die like the rocket sprinters have. BTW can your no car injector be set up to handle nitro methane?

Yes, with the same precautions/problems that would go with any other fuel system and nitro. Jim
 
One odd thing about nitro methane, when I added a small %age to the gas tank of my old Mopar, the tired, 3/4ths non functioning fuel gauge reacted to the go-juice & booted up again, how about that...its quite reactive.
If you looked at that Nazi rocket science pdf on the 'Happy Guy Fawkes Day' thread you can see what they thought of it.
Interesting was their finding of the energy potential of Diesel as rocket fuel, -as poor bloody Oklahoma City also found out.
 
Alrighty Jim, glad to know the wide capacity of your EFI to dream about. TC ran nitro in his dragster before days of electo-brain systems and nirto ain't available in public stations so may be able to just use old school nitro fueling for the record events and sure ain't going to try it in public where idle and lugging around needed. I would love for Peel to break under 10 sec. 1/4's, somehow besides rocket assist passing gear.
 
Yes Matt, same as bunker oil battleships of yore, new age carriers are nuclear power plants so electromagnet catapults are now the rage. Yet steam still drives the turbines that run the whole show though.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technol ... mics-.html

Pure blast ballistics would liquify pilot vitals which leaves throttled or staged rockets as most potent human craft accelerators. A couple of walnut size nozzles with H2O2 could about black out a fighter pilot. Takes like 80-90% or 180 proof H2O2 to work well, Foul farmers use 55% in bulk here, so would only take a few thumps through a distiller to get fuel to go go. Oh ugh have I looked deeply into this 500-600 hp reactive passing gear to smoke tires catching up. This does not count an after burner which is very simple once rockets lit. Then just for kix, spray in water for steam jet mass reaction freeing even more O2 to burn harder.

This of course still leaves non human craft that accelerate the whole space time matrix as a unit so acceleration is not an issue to occupants or craft itself.

Can ya imagine the blunt acceleration hit though as top Feuler start burning its own engine metal to turn its crank!
 
You mean liliputions finish straight eight Delage Crankshaft . :P :)

acceleration


justa seena ' roots type multi disc plate clutch drive , 1920s mercedes , Young Hobot . Might be worth a look for your menachine. ' Blower ' ( labled ) switch av Wolosley 6 /110 .
Dont tell anyone its from the HEATER Blower . :wink:
Hitch hikers I tell . " DONT touch that Button . Its the Ejector Seat " . Get some odd looks . :D
 
Matt -could you kindly find & post that amazing Lightning ejection pic, the one with the farmer on his tractor in shot? Those Gs save lives even if they compress spines to do it.
& , say - isn`t that BIG crank a 2-stroke?
 
MAD ? MAD ! Everyones Mad . Some more than others .

acceleration


this chap went ahead with display after forgetting his BOOTS at a Paris Air Show . Also dropped his guts , once or twice . Ended up unserviceable .
But THEY HAD completed the Ejector Seat test trials . :D

probably paid two shillings a week , knowing the . . ah . . British . :(

acceleration


Smile for the Camera . ( Actually , probly being a bit harsh. Matin Baker were TOFFS . :) )
 
Oh yeah..., "Sweet mother of acceleration - don`t fail me now!" Cheers old chap... Kinda puts a tank-slapper into perspective, that plucky Lightning-basher chap did pop the champers cork in time though, rough landing with a sore back or no, & - very obviously a well trained RAF type, with more than an average tot of the proverbial British spunk, I`d reckon...[& I almost won`t mention that ejection seats were yet more Nazi aerospace tech..].
Too bad those last two weren`t so equipped...hard cheese, as the fly boys were wont to remark..
 
What happens? Shipment is late for Xmas...or somesuch titanic bother ensues..Chief engineroom artificer gets right bollocking..or de-bollocking..both bloody bollocks..
 
I've tasted power that just spins tire instantly to throttle set w/o delay or regard to bike speed [up to 60's or so upright] I'm not talking WOT throttle dear sirs, I mean 1/4 throttle at say 35 mph sets rear at 65 mph, much more throttle snap than that sends tire to over 100 mph greasy mess that don't hook up again fast enough to take adavtage of the sudden direction change w/o much lean involved. At 60 mph may have to snap 3/4 open to get proper instant spin per mph per steering action, like 60 mph on 120 mph tire - but engine hits its fuel feed torque level so tire doesn't keep speeding up, instead the bike speeds up to 120 mph then holds that till cutting power adding more, but just leaps forward/upward all hooked up at that speed, not butt steering with throttle lubricator. Darting into hi way traffic with just a few bike lengths between cars is childs play not even out of first before swinging out of lane to snick second and pass a line of cars for clear road to let her rip up the other gears. Ghost Rider didn't even do stuff like that as his over powered machines wheelied before handling a real drag bike launch. What would you do when instant flat tracker slide and MX bike jumps on tap with mere whim to twitch the wrist? I know. and both thrils and scares the shit out of me. Hunter Thomson slobbers in my ear on rides as do killed friends, til throttling away from their ghosts. BLATT>REDLINED!
 
Mmmmm, tasty, synaesthesmic power, arrrggghhh.. Yep, have some, but what happens when all that inertia snaps back at ya, like a treed Mt Lion thats wanting down & gooorn, outa there..
One safety consideration....hehehehe ,that of low reciprocating inertia torque, is a pleasant intrinsic factor in 2-strokes, that some, of the other persuasion - complain about as ...no engine braking... well its done saved my ass..ets.. when seriously out of line hooked up, as you remark Hobot, when you`ve got the instincts set..ride it outa there, & send some +ve waves along to them thats done.
 
Back
Top