7 Things You Didn't Know About Drag Racing

and Safavid aqus we're here at the NHRA drag races today not really interested in so much the racing or who's gonna win the event I really just want to look at what the tech is here so we're gonna go through the pits and we're gonna see what we can find that's interesting to look at and I'll try to describe it as much as possible so starting with one Top Fuel and funny car engines are held in with hose clamps you'd think they might have some highly exotic mounting system but no it's just hose clamps this is one of those cases where experience and tradition probably rules once the engine is placed they can put in the proper position and just put the hose clamps on done it's not very exotic but it is simple and simplicity rules in drag racing [Applause] [Music] Pro Stock Top Fuel and funny cars all use carbon carbon brakes that means that the brake rotors and the pads are made from all carbon similar to Formula one brakes carbon brakes are lighter have more stopping power and handle heat better than traditional brakes they're actually so important that NHRA mandates that all Pro Stock Top Fuel and funny cars use carbon carbon brakes it's actually a rule one downside of the carbon brakes is that they don't work well until they're up to temperature on drag race cars when you first press on the brake they're totally cold right because they don't get to warm up the brakes so the brakes don't work very well initially get to wait a few moments for the heat to build up and then the brake pedal feels like it's starting to fall below your foot or in the case of Top Fuel fronted cars they have a handbrake lever for braking no actual brake pedal top feels don't even have front brakes just rear there's stories of racers crashing the cars when carbon brakes first came out because they didn't know that when you press in the pedal you have to wait a moment when it's cold for the carbon to come up to temp and they press too hard on the brakes and they locked up the tires and crash the car I've actually driven with carbon brakes on my last two drag cars and they're definitely superior to traditional brakes and for going over 200 miles an hour and over 300 for the fuel cars I can see why they mandate carbon brakes these cars are so finely tuned that they actually wait until the final moments before they go to the staging lane to put the final tune-up in the car there'll be a crew guy that's going up to the line and on the track and see what the condition of the track is and what the other cars have run so the fuel cars will adjust the blower pressure and they'll do that with different sized pulleys that go on the blower they'll even adjust the clutch settings like right there in the staging lanes the pro stocks will do things like adjust the two-step rev limiter one of the top Fuel crew chiefs told me that on a cold day when the weather is good for making more power they'll actually put a puller on the blower that make it less boost so they don't spin the tires they don't have trouble making power it's getting the power to the track that's the magic in all the setup bunny cars don't have transmissions they have an engine with a multi-plate clutch then it goes straight into the rear end all the cars have the same 3.20 rear end ratio so a set of shifting gears they slip the clutch pretty much the whole way down the track the way that they do that is with timers and with weights on the fingers and it adjusts how much the clutch gets engaged going down the track they do have a part called the reverser so they can back up the car from their burnout due to the enormous strain on the clutch they rebuild it each run [Applause] [Music] pro stock cars use a shifter called a verdict 8 it only up shifts and has five gears the teams are always trying to optimize their gearing so each team has hundreds of different gear ratios to choose from the burnout you roll into the water box here first second third start your burnout and third or fifth after your burning you drop it into neutral you stop pull it into reverse back up go back to burst the stage you go through five years in four seconds [Music] all the pro drive cars have a one inch wheelbase stagger one of the front wheels is set back one inch from the other side it's the maximum allowed by the rules this helps to lower elapsed times in qualifying due to the longer rollout when the car goes to the staging beam the way the staging beams work when it rolls in it cuts the beam and when it reconnects is when the timer starts so the longer they can roll out or get a little head start in the car starts moving before that beam reconnects they have more like basically a little bit of a head start before the timer starts the top few and plenty cars have external starters that they hook up to the blower the batteries for the starters are mounted on the golf carts they even have a spare starter in case one fails I like the glasses Top Fuel and funny cars have no suspension the parts are just straight-up bolted to the chassis they can get away with that because the tracks are pretty smooth and the large tires and chassis z' work to handle the bumps on the track hey so thanks for watching I had a lot of fun filming today I was actually talking to a lot of the crew chiefs and some of the crew in fact checking some of the statements that I made on the video so thanks to them and you want to see more of this please consider subscribing if you haven't already and I'll see you the next video thanks [Music]

Channel: PapadakisRacing

Views: 5,458,595

Rating: 4.8966675 out of 5

Keywords: nhra, drag, racing, clutch, multi plate, slipper clutch, national, hot, rod, association, steph, stephan, papadakis, papadakis racing, top fuel, funny car, car, staging, brakes, carbon, fiber, pro stock, liberty, transmmission, goodyear, tires, things you don't know, didn't know, tips, ihra, 1320, 1/4 mile, 1000, hose, clamp, tune up, suspension

Id: F98lUtez3EU

Length: 5min 33sec (333 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 17 2019