I love a good turnaround video, coming from a top alcohol dragster crew member, and our team has a few ex-top fuel guys. I skipped through a bunch cause it was late in the night, but I wanted to note you guys had a lot of good insights, especially if you haven't crewed on a drag team. I made a few notes if you find it interesting. 1. On a fuel car the only lines running to the headers should be EGT cables, I'm not aware of anything more than that. 2. You called it out, on wheels for nitro teams, they have drive lugs so its not just the wheel studs transferring all the power. 3. I could be wrong here, but I don't think they expected to change the motor. I doubt they'd take out the rack and hone the cylinders if they knew they'd be swapping. Probably was a choice from the bottom end after looking at the crank/main bearings. 4. Its pretty common for race teams to custom make tools. Turnover bars can be 1/2" drive ratchets with a bar welded on them, and the lug nut extensions are probably some steel tube welded onto sockets. 5. Fuel cars have a very low static compression for a race engine, lets say 9.0 or less, the insane amount of fuel they run fills up the chamber fast. 5. They always change the full clutch pack, so the pack on the bench will be reground later, and a full new pack is put in for the next run.
Thanks for the info, I didn't set out to film the whole process of getting the car ready for the next round, I just started recording in the moment with the car coming back to the pits. I've been an auto mechanic for 37 years and I have done a little drag racing but these things are completely different animals, the most extreme internal combustion engines the crew and the legendary driver John Force
John lives just down the road from me. He is just as super nice IRL as he is at the track. He will help anytime ya ask and doesn’t want anything in return. He even has a museum right there just in Ocala (Fl). He will take the time and make ya feel like your old buddies, not rushed like he needs to be somewhere else. Really a nice guy. Just thought I’d let you guys know that. (See ya at the Gator Nats John😉)
Yep,, he's 75 or 76 year young and he's STILL among the quickest at the light, quickest and fastest out the back door of every race track in NHRA. He is a legend,, he's earned his place in the record books.
The chassis is made of chrome-moly tubing. The tub that the driver sits in is made up of carbon fiber and titanium. The body of the car is made of carbon fiber (before they were carbon fiber they were made out fiberglass) The engine block starts off as large block of billet aluminum before it is machine and heat treated . The cylinder heads are also made of billet aluminum and the valves are made of titanium. The pistons and rods are also made of billet aluminum. The average cylinder compression ratio is less that 7:1 and often is less. The reason I say average compression ratio per cylinder is because engine builders/tuners will often vary the compression ratio of each cylinder to tune the engine and the final compression ratio is determined by the head gasket thickness. The question the gentleman have about the “lines” going into each pipe of exhaust headers is a pyrometer. The exhaust gas temperature is collected along with various other inputs to a data file that the engine tuner and his “brain trust” analyze after each run to determine engine performance during the run. This data can help the crew chief/tuner make decisions about the engine along with track temperature, atmospheric conditions etc. Additionally the data collected each run can help the crew chief/tuner determine the what, when, and how of parts failures when an engine blows up during the run. Top Fuel cars (Dragsters & Funny Cars) run on a mix of up to 90% Nitromethane and is diluted with Methanol. The crew chief/tuner will alter the percentage of Nitromethane slightly depending on track and atmospheric conditions to help with the tuning of the engine. Many Crew Chiefs make final adjustments to the nitromethane percentage just prior to there run in the staging lanes. Nitromethane is an interesting compound in that you can pour a puddle of it on the ground and drop all the lit matches you want in it and it will not burn but if place some in between a two steel plates and hit it with a hammer it will explode. Additionally Nitromethane CH3NO although used as fuel in several categories of drag racing as well as for remote control vehicles is not considered chemically a fuel but rather a solvent or and oxidizer. It is the simplest organic nitro compound. It is also widely in the manufacture of pesticides, explosives, fibers, and coatings. Something most people don’t know is that when starting one of these engines is that because nitromethane is so had to ignite that when they first start one of these engines it is first started on regular unleaded gasoline until some heat is put into the engine and then switched over to nitromethane. If you listen to a fuel car engine start you will hear the exhaust sound change from a the sound of à gasoline rumble to the nitromethane cackle. A top fuel car burns about 20 gallons of fuel from startup to shutdown. Additionally after each run the NHRA takes a fuel sample from the fuel tank/cell to make sure teams are not using more than 90% nitromethane(technically the percentage of nitromethane is not measured but rather its specific gravity) as well to ensure that the fuel they are using is only nitromethane and methanol and nothing else. The gentleman talking in the background made mention to the deep well socket the crewman was using to remove and install the lugnuts. That is actually a socket welded to a piece of chrome-moly tubing with a short extension welded to the other end. The reason for this is a standard extension is heavy but more importantly will twist and lose torque where as the chrome-moly tubing being used will not.
@@curtiswalter86 long ago when I was in my teens and washing parts on a very small Nitro team that was part of a match race circuit I learned or should I say this was beaten into my head Gasoline is for washing parts, Alcohol is for drinking, And Nitromethane is for racing (It also is pretty good at causing paint to bubble up😁🇺🇦)
We're now closer to 4:1 compression ratio. The lines on the headers are simply EGT sensors. We burn around 17 gallons from the time we start it up until we shut it off after 1000'. NHRA only checks fuel about every few races or at total random. It's not after every run.
I have a connecting rod that came out of his engine in 83 when he was testing at Spokane Raceway. They were on there way to California for a race. I was a young kid and 40 year's later not much has changed still am when it comes to watching these guy's
The lines going to the exhaust are temperature and 02 sensors they monitor each cylinder. Look up Clay Millican he's on RU-vid. You can learn a lot about what all the different parts and things are for on these cars. Pretty cool channel to watch
Good job on this video. We appreciated the 'play by play' as these top fuel/funny car crew members go about their appointed tasks. It is very obvious they've done their tasks hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. It shows by how they go about their work with no one talking,, each team member knows their job but they as well know exactly what the other is doing. Practice makes perfect and IF you're working for a boss like John Force,, you better be perfect and make ZERO MISTAKES or you're looking for a new job! What's really cool about JFR is that 'ol John knows EVERYTHING about his race cars and he knows if there's a slacker on the team.
Exhaust sensor tracks heat and pressure. computer tracking helps mapping out if they had a cylinder not firing during run. The eng has pressure sensors in heads, exhaust, oil pan, & intake & so on.
Clutch pack is changed every run floater plates are trashed and disk can be reused if measurements are good. However the clutch comes out of car at 2.8-3000 degrees Fahrenheit so they must cool down slowly overnight.
Blower is pushing at approximately 60psi. Depends on condition and tune. Forcing 14gal of fuel per 3.6-3.9 sec. Fuel tank holds 17gal and the fuel line on a funny holds 1 gal dragster holds 2 ish gallons. Total per burnout and run is 19.5 gal of 88-90% nitro 12-10% methanol. Street fuel is 14.7 percent o2 to 1 parts fuel. Nitro carries 100% 1 to 1 Nitro carrys 1 oxygen molecule for every nitro molecule (1-1). Nitro is insanely powerful but only under compression.
What is astounding to me is that the head gasket is one big way they tune the engine. There are of course myriad other items but it looms large in the overall tune.
My God!!! The whole body frame is made of paper!! They are so fast too🫠. The set up too is amazing how so many of them can work on this small car without getting in each other's way.
There is nothing amazing or incredible about what the crew is doing, they are highly trained and skilled. They have done this hundreds of times, each person knows exactly what to do. If you watch this process in the next city it will be exactly the same. Only a true automotive technician understands what is going on.
This is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE for what the entire pit crew does in such a short time span. There's only a small percentage of people that are chosen to be a part of such an amazing team . So for you to say that there is nothing amazing or incredible about what they do is clearly an understatement. I remember when 220mph was fast for the quarter mile. Now it's 300+.
Cool fact. 99% of drivers will weat a mask during warmup. They keep thier lungs clean for better o2 levels when they are strapped in tight and cant expand chest due to seatbelt tightness. John also has an O2 hose in his mouth all the way to start line.
Next time you guys make a video, could you please mute the audio, and keep the camera on the guys doing the motor-work (rather, than looking at the ”parachute guy”, re-pack John's parachute; and, how small the 'wheel' is, on the, wheelie-bar; the back of Ashley Force's head; John Force, amounst the fans; not enough mustard on your corn-dogs; wanting a 'hat'; etc)?!! I'm grateful you made the video. Don't get me wrong.... But, what was the purpose for making the video, if you're going to be focusing on so many other topics, than the pit-crew tearing-down & rebuilding a 1000+-hp ”beast-of-a-motor”? If, you three need more mustard for your corn-dogs,... I'll send it to you...I promise -Mr. ”X”
You guys don't none of you have a job John Force done cocaine I'm the NHRA owner and I said he is not racing you let him race track official you don't have a job I promise you call Yuma can't all your mechanic song I've been telling them to put it in the trailer he's not racing that car belongs to Lester racing all the tools that truck and trailer yeah there's nothing belongs to
John is a cool dude. His daughter's though are kinda bitchy. They all came to our school to look around and join was awesome but none of us really got good vibes from courtney or Brittany
While Top Fuel might be slowly dying due to the costs associated with it most other classes of drag racing especially no prep and ProMod racing is seeing incredible growth right now
I’ve watched a crew do this at Sears Piont in Sonoma Cali,very cool !…Fun Fact: You spend a Whole Day watching about 12 minutes of Actual Racing(track Time🤣🦾
Much like football, an interesting ratio of action vs time spent. You can't quite feel football in your body like you can watching 20,000+ hp make a run down the track.
