The heyday for the top gas dragster class of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) was 1961 to 1971. In contrast to them Nitro-cutting counterparts in top fuelTop gas cars normally used old pump gas. Nitromethane makes crazy power thanks to the more thorough combustion (more about that later), so running gas was a serious disability. To be competitive in the top gas class, you had to become creative. Many builders settled on two engines such as the solution, but how do you ensure that they play nicely with a single axis? You could do the way the car and driver did with his two-motor Honda CRX and simply put a separate power train in the back, but that is not how top gas attacked the problem.
The all-converted freight train Dragster ran around 1600 hp in 1971, the last year of top gas. Or rather, it made 800 plus 800, because that figure came from two bored and 428-cubic inch first-gen Chrysler Hemi V8’s literally chained to make a V16 with a space in the middle. The two engines ran like one because builder John Peters Supercharger Drive-Hubs converts into a gears and used Double Roll number 50 chain to connect them, then the rear engine forwarded by a double trender box as you would with a normal arrangement of the power train.
The Double Dragon of Eddie Hill used a few supercharged Pontiac V8s in an opposite, side by side, which ran down as twin liners together. Instead of connecting the engines directly and forcing them in Lockstep, he gave each own flywheel, coupling, drive shaft and individual ring and rounds on the rear axle. It worked well enough for Double Dragon to hit 202.7 km / h in the quarter in Hobbs, New Mexico and RIPT chunks from the sidewalk from the track in Indianapolis.
Multiple engines are a resistance, an awesome resistance
The double engine dragsters left a lasting impression on many people, and there are modern recreations with their own ingenious ways to link two engines to a single gearbox. One of the more impressive, insane examples are the evil twins of Rocky Phillips (above). He combined two small block Chevy V8s by having the flywheels work like a few giant cogs. This of course means that one of the engines must turn in the opposite direction. He succeeded in getting the right valve timing in the backward engine thanks to a camshaft from a Chris Craft Boat V8, which ran reversed through design. Phillips was then able to attach a coupling or torque inverter to one of the flywheels to run back to an offset differential through a transmission.
Although setups with multiple engine are nostalgic for drag racers, they are pedestrians at Tractor-pulls. As a child I saw tractors with the most diverse, incomprehensible cool power trains that would have been a bit exaggerated in “Mad Max”. You hear nothing more frightening and lifestyle-dan a tractor with three Allison Aircraft V12s dragging a sled over 320 feet.
(Warning: If you take your children to a tractor trek, they can force you to help them make an external controlled MINI tractor pull. Side effects include a sense of satisfaction and happiness.)
While tractor -builds vary, one typical setup each motor gives its own coupling and drive shaft that can be made to a single gearbox route, which can be manufactured to receive electricity from the number of engines that you prefer. From that gearbox the combined power of all engines flows to a transmission or a unit with one speed that only ensures forward, neutral and vice versa.
Nitro is the answer, a scary, explosive answer
Nitromethane burns with frightening explosiveness and can even manage combustion without needing air. Gasoline, although energetic with 31,000 calories per gallon, equal to 110 McDonald’s hamburgers, cannot compete. It takes about 15 pounds of air to burn a pound of gasoline, but only 1.7 pounds of air to burn a pound of nitromethane when it uses air. You don’t need much nitro for complete combustion.
When Dragsters started using Nitro for the first time, speeds became so fast that the NHRA feared that it would lose insurance, so the Nitromethane forbade in 1957. When Nitro returned in 1963, the top gas was active for two years. The attitude of top gas competitors in relation to top fuel can best be summarized by John Peters, builder of the freight train tandem-omotor top gas car, in an interview with Greg Sharp in 2011, re-published on Mercury: “Running gasoline is a challenge. It costs more than 10 percent and some overdrive. Nitro is not even a fuel. It is an excuse.”
Top gas appeared again in 1978. It still required pump gas as the only fuel, but eliminated supercharging and determined that the cars use torque formers. What did not appear again were bilingual dragsters, and not because they were forbidden. They just weren’t necessary. The fastest time of the supercharged Dual-Engine Freight Train in 1971 was 6.95 seconds, while Lena Williams ran a one-engine top gas car without a blazer to a 6.98 in 1983. Multi-engine setups work in a pulling power because speed is not the goal that so much rough. In dragsters, weight and aerodymanica are larger inhibitory factors, and as soon as single -motor force is high enough, adding a second plant is not necessary. An example of this does Brittany Force Prima and hits 341.85 MPH with one engine.
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