Those two news stories a few posts ago...

I had remembered a post from a few years ago about Nitromethane race engines. I am guessing that the original news article for today's post conflated Methanol and Nitromethane. This is the fuel for Top Fuel dragsters and here is the link to the July 2006 post (the original website is sadly out of commission -- I liked The Braden Files dammit!) Here is an excerpt:

A lesson in Acceleration

dv/dt = [F - vdm/dt]/m

One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

• Under full throttle, a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 11.2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.
• A stock Dodge 426 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger.
• With 3000 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 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F ( 3900 degrees C ).
• Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapour 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 a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees 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.

To put a couple gallons of this hellfire into a 50 gallon barrel and to ignite the fumes is a classic Darwin Award attempt. No word as to pre-existing children (a Darwin dealbreaker) or the current state of the two moke's wedding tackle but still...