Nitro Madness AA/FA

[WildcatOne]

At Eddyville, 2 of the cars in our pit area were on nitro, and we were hanging out when they warmed 'em up. We wept, but with smiles on our faces. At first, it is tantalysing and exotic and you get an instant buzz and it draws you in closer...closer...then suddenly it's got you by the throat and you're choking to death in a yellow cloud of oxygen-absorbing acid fumes and we reeled backwards gasping. Then we moved back in a little to try to get in the sweet spot again...the next morning my nose felt funny and I blew blood out...masks are good in the pits...Lippy liked to got exphysciated...the nitro cloud had gotten stuck in the area under the awning and it wasn't going anywhere...Leon was gleefully whapping the throttle...we were laughing but that definitely is painful to go through...it's one of the things about drag racing that got me hooked on it way back when...WC1

[jim sanders]

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Nitro at the fringes is like Necter of the Gods of Horsepower,,,but getting blasted in the face with it from a running fuel engine makes you wonder if you will ever live thru it!!

[WildcatOne]

WELL said, Rapid1!

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Something that surprised me. When I worked for Virgil Hartman last year. On TV when they put them on the high-side as they were pre-staged, they sound pretty cool, the rpm drops and the pipes are spewing out a ton of fuel you just know you are going to see something special.

When you are on the line right by them, they put them on the high-side, these things sound like dog do-do! I am not even sure exactly why they even will leave the line. It sounds, for real, like they just stuffed the engine under the water, I am not kidding! They sound terrible. They sure haul a** though!!

[pro70z28]

Yes, they are.

I wonder if they're related to the "Arnold Motor Supply" in Algona, IA? They were one of my suppliers when I had my shop in Iowa. They did ALL my machine work. ............It's a small world........... sorry Mike.

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Yes they are Pro. I think they have like 40-stores or something like that.

Rapid

[pro70z28]

[WildcatOne]

Something that surprised me. When I worked for Virgil Hartman last year. On TV when they put them on the high-side as they were pre-staged, they sound pretty cool, the rpm drops and the pipes are spewing out a ton of fuel you just know you are going to see something special.

When you are on the line right by them, they put them on the high-side, these things sound like dog do-do! I am not even sure exactly why they even will leave the line. It sounds, for real, like they just stuffed the engine under the water, I am not kidding! They sound terrible. They sure haul a** though!!

Rapid, putting them on the high-side means they turn on the second fuel pump, doesn't it? Like they fire them up, do the burnout and make final adjustments using one of the two fuel systems, then when the driver pre-stages and gets set to stage, he or she turns on the second pump, the engine sounds like it's being flooded and it's gulping air to survive. At the hit, the spark detonates all that fuel (in a perfect world), the rpms skyrocket and the fuel is still burning when it gets pushed out of the combustion chamber, through the exhaust and out of the header into the air (hence, "header flames") and more fuel gets shot into the cylinder...I was reading a while back about the crucial importance of fuel, valve and cylinder pressure, clearance and timing for proper atomization and vaporization of the fuel in order for each of them (the cylinders) to properly ignite...it ain't gonna burn just the liquid; it has to be a mixture of air and fuel at a certain amount or it won't ignite and it will just move the raw fuel in and out of the chamber without firing it...there is an equation, a balance, of all these constantly moving parts and available air that is about as complicated as it can get...on a T/F car, you got 16 spark plugs, 2 mags, 8 cylinders, 2 fuel systems pumping gallons of nitro into that thing per second at incredible pressure and engine speed...not to mention the blower, injector, gears, clutch, etc. etc...just having all the parts in place ain't gonna be enough...you have to have it all working together in perfect balance and harmony or it's going to come apart on you...I know I'm just skimming the surface of the whole story here...setting up one of those cars is one of the most mentally and physically exhaustive and demanding exercizes I ever saw...it requires full concentration for an entire day...heck, probably for an entire life...to keep the dang thing running healthy...there's a lot at stake...I'm rambling, but when I saw the teams working on the cars at Eddyville, I was overwhelmed with volumes of pitside data that I'm still sorting out. It was an incredible experience. Cheers, WC1

[jim sanders]

NICE READ WC!! we need more nitro talk around here !! Iwould love an in depth discussion of how load makes nitro do it's thing