Drag racing update.

[jr dragster Tyler]

When to the track this weekend made 2 pass's on saterday all whent good 8.70@75 MPH. BUT on sunday FIRST run of the day (time trial) snapped the crankshaft in 2 peices. The crankshaft was a 420$ Stroker crank. It just happend out of the blue full throttle (8000) rpms then all of a sudden It locked up INSTANLY just a dead stop. I will get some pics of this as soon as we tear down the motor. Not to mentiom when the crank broke the cvt polar clutch got damaged pretty bad (800$).

[Russ2251]

Mr. jr dragster Tyler:
Sorry to hear about your problems.
I have questions.
Have you ever experienced/witnessed a flywheel explosion in this sport? If so, what was extent of damage?
Do you (or anybody) use scatter shields?
Just curious.

[jr dragster Tyler]

No I have never seen a flywheel explode. We all run billet clements or ARC flywheels. No we dont run any kind of blower housing, scatter shield, Heat deflecters or anything. http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll33/juniordragster123/DSC02139.jpghttp://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll33/juniordragster123/DSC02138.jpg

[gocartkid]

Ouch! But breakage is always a good excuse to make it faster, right? LOL! What's involved in getting started in racing these puppies? I'm torn right now between building up a dirt kart racer or dragster, but either way I'm going to enter about mid-season to get practice in for next year. (I'm a pretty good driver btw) Any tips? :cheers2:

[jr dragster Tyler]

Not to shoot you down but drag racing rules are so:censored: :censored: tight. Its too much to build one yourself. All the engines HAVE to be Briggs based and there are alot of other rules you can check into at www.nhra.com. And when runing 75-90 mph in 7-8 seconds they cannot be homemade. The homemade ones are concidered "Junior dragster open" which is not technically a junior dragster but NHRA has just closed junior open.

[gocartkid]

Yup, I know they're tight....and strict too. I wasn't talking about building one from scratch (b/c then the chassis needs to be certified and I'd have to go through all of that uneeded :censored: ). I was thinking about buying a chassis and going from there (my dad is a fabricator so that helps). I would need a Briggs based engine either way I go...so that doesn't bother me. I did see NHRA.com a while back....just wondering if you had any other info? It would probably help other curious people on here too. Nice dragger you got there btw. :drool5:

[jr dragster Tyler]

Thanks, Yeah you could go from there, buying a chasis. Im not sure about your age but I think when your like 11 you have to run 12.90 but when you turn 12 you can run as low as 7.90. I know the engines are VERY expensive but dont go cheap on the engines. A Briggs 5 or 8 or 11 wont do it. You need about a 3 inch bore alcohol motor which run around 3000-4000$. It just isnt fun going slow so go big or stay at home!

[ironman]

man i know your dad was heated over that .a good hunk of change there just in the crank. thats more than some guys got in there whole kart.

[jr dragster Tyler]

Well when my car broke at first when I was on the track I didnt know if it was a broken cam gear, crank shaft, con rod, etc. My dad towed me back to the pits with a tow rope on his baja heat mini bike. Then We where looking around the motor and I grab the fly wheel and move it and it has about 1/2 of end play and 1/8 up and down movement then my dad just started laughin, But then when reality kicked in after the laughing it was like ohh:censored: :( It was VERY scary when it let go because I had no clue if the car would be on fire or what so there was a few seconds of panic. overall it was still a fun weekend.

[gocartkid]

I'm 14 (same as you, right?). 7.90 I would assume is in the 1/8 mile, or do you do shorter runs? That's my motto actually: go big or go home. I looked into the engines you guys use...they are works of art. And yea, anytime you pop an engine it's scary for a second....especially when the draggers are set up so you can't see what the engine is doing.

[jr dragster Tyler]

yeah im 14 and we run 1/8 mile. And that engine is definatly a work of art as you can see from the photo's above. a little update on this crank shaft probelem is we bought a brand new stroker crankshaft so now I will be as fast or faster than 8.70's Shoulda known when the car slowed down somthing was wrong, because I ran 8.30's with that engine last year and all of a sudden we slow down and get very imconsitant then BOOM!