Street Racing
The intricacies that are involved in turning a regular car into a “Street Racer” are many; and racers pour their souls into these magnificent machines. After seeing “the Fast and the Furious” many people have or wanted to become involved in street racing. They do not realize that this is a sport that takes knowledge, hard work, and nerve. Many of these racers have spent their lives under a car, learning the trade and improving upon it. As I have learned, this is not just a hobby; it is a way of life.
This lifestyle does carry a price, racers face persecution from police and the general public. They have their cars impounded and defaced by those who reject racing. Having a racer is not illegal, but some of the things people do with them are. This is what the general public does not understand. The IRA* is a legal racing circuit that embraces Street Racers. It gives the much-needed outlet to build magnificent cars and race them legally.
Police are not the only worry on a racers mind. Death, fraud, and theft are the dark side of this moon. Some racers lack legitimate funds for equipment, and they resort to theft and fraud. This is where the misconceptions of the general public resonate. Yes there is crime; and laws are broken, but in everything there is a good and bad. So I warn anyone who pursues this life, enjoy the good, and be ready for the bad.
What drives these racers to this lifestyle? They have an addiction to speed. The six-cylinder engine fuels this “need for speed.” Some may think that their two hundred thousand dollar car is fast, with these engine modifications will have an Accord blowing the doors off a Ferrari. The six-cylinder engine has six pistons pumping in six cylinders; hence, the name.
Fuel is injected and burned; causing gas compression (picture a shaken soda bottle). This compression forces the pistons up and down that move your car. With compression in the cylinder, the Turbo comes into play. If two balloons were filled with air, one half and the other full, which would go faster? This is the job of the Turbo. Burning requires air, and when you introduce more air a fire is larger and hotter. It forces compressed air into the engine, letting it burn more air each time the pistons pump increasing boost**.
There is a drawback to more air, more heat in the engine. Heat in the engine makes the air d...
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...d slows, this is how the spoiler helps. To add more push to the back of the car, the angle and height of the spoiler is increased. This is why some normal cars have little spoiler for show and racers use them for performance.
There is a problem to adding all of these parts to a car, weight. As I have said the racers have adapted to this problem. They have lightened their cars by using carbon-fiber** parts.4 They are strong and half as light at metal, so racers can add these parts and not get dragged down…literally.
A warning to those who read this, do not get dragged down into the dark side of racing. Racing on streets is dangerous. If you enhance a car like this, it should be raced only on a legal strip. A ten-second rush is not worth killing yourself or others. Work hard and be fair. If you do this you will always win. I hope to have helped any curious person who wanted to know how people make these racers. I wanted to dispel the stereotypes of racers and their lifestyle. Yes, some of this lifestyle is dark; but most racers are kids who love cars. They whole-heartedly adopt the dogma that, “Nothing else matters, and for those ten seconds or less… they’re free.” 5
The word demolition means collisions and hitting two objects together while derby mean a race. These two words put together creates a competitive place for people to enjoy derby cars. Demolition derby drivers come from long family history of drivers. The pasion starts when they are old enough to walk, helping dad at the garage. He can remember their first demolition derby going forty miles per hour, smashing into another car and coming in third. From that moment on, he was hooked. From my experience and research, I know there is a lot of time and effort that goes into building the car, participating in the demo derby, and keeping a driver and spectators safe and these are the three areas of focus on in this paper.
The piston is pushed upward by the flywheel's momentum, compressing the air/fuel mix. 3. Combustion: As the piston reaches the top of its stroke or TDC, the spark plug fires, igniting the mixture. Due to the high compression of this mixture, it is very volatile and it explodes when the spark is introduced. This pushes the piston downward and produces power.
Do you want your car to pick up speed faster? How about adding a turbo booster on that engine under your automobiles hood. A turbo charger is a very efficient way to gain power. To fully understand the function of this component, lets look at the physics behind it. The Ideal Gas model has much to do in turbo chargers. I will explain the theory and components like the compressor, turbine, intercooler, wastegate, and the BOV.
Some say that automotive racing began when the second car was built. For over a hundred years, competition has driven innovation in the car industry, thus the industry maxim “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” NASCAR and drag racing contributed greatly to muscle cars’ success. Muscle cars were born from these competitions as factory made race cars. Because of this, the muscle car quickly moved from a low quantity specialty item to the image of the American automotive scene. Each brand had to have one and each one needed better performance and personality than the next. The Golden Age began in the 1960s with the introduction of more performance models such as the Chevy SS Impala and the Ford Galaxy Starliner (Auto Editors).
Take a look at your car, it probably can only hit eighty on a good day. Then watch the top fuel and funny car dragsters of the National Hot Rod Association who get three hundred miles per hour on a bad day. You would be blown away at the diffrence in power. The pure power and the amount of noise that these cars produce will blow you away. I'm going to inform you on a lot of the amazing facts about the nitro powered dragsters of the NHRA. First, i'm going to inform you on how drag racing started and on how drag racing works, then how the dragsters work. Following that i'm going to explain how the equipment keeps the drivers and workers safe, finally I will explain how the sport is evolving,
There are many different kinds of vehicles on the road, but the ones that stand out the most are muscle cars and sports cars. Their unique design and body styles will catch people’s attention wherever they go. The Ford Mustang, a high performing muscle car introduced in 1964, is the most notable muscle car on the streets. It is most known for its unique body design with a long hood and short, rear decks. Their high performing V8 engines make their exhausts have a really deep, loud growl. When you think of sports cars, the first that comes to mind is the Chevrolet Corvette. Its sleek body style paired with its ability to stick to the ground around corners, makes it a very notable sports car in America. The two most iconic versions of these
How would you like to go over 100 mph and make a living doing it? The event I am researching is NASCAR. NASCAR is which a multibillion dollar industry they race 1500 races a year in 39 states and 100 tracks. NASCAR is the 2nd most watched sport in the United States. The major race series they are the sprint cup series, nationwide series, and the camping world truck series. NASCAR is the largest sanctioning body of stock car racing in the United States. NASCAR headquarters are located in Daytona Beach Florida.
There are many differences between Turbos and Blowers. The first is the power curve. Superchargers build boost as rpm increases in a linear fashion, because they are belt driven from the engine crankshaft. This means that the supercharger is always on and achieves its maximum potential at higher rpm's. The faster the engine is going, the faster the supercharger is turning. T...
Hundreds of thoughts swarm through my head, as I think of potential car and launcher designs. It was the beginning of 8th grade. A new year of middle school, a new year of Science Olympiad, a new year of studying for my events, and a new year of challenges: my first building event, Scrambler. I’ve always been interested in science, specifically medicine, ever since I was 7 or 8. I read a book called When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Doctor, which inspired me to aspire to become a doctor. Ever since then, I’ve been exploring the field of science and medicine through a variety of learning experiences such as Science Olympiad, a science competition consisting of several events that cater to a variety of fields in science. This year, my partner and I were faced with the task of building a mechanical vehicle, powered by a falling mass, that is capable of traveling down a straight, level track with a barrier at the end while carrying an
Why do I Dragster? A question that at first may sound really weird. This question actually asks why would you want to race C02 cars. First, to understand what this is, lets start with the Basics.
Firstly, the gas turbine engine operation begins with the air intake process. As of all internal combustion engine, oxygen is required to support the combustion of the fuel and the source of oxygen is from the fresh air that is taken in. Initially, the fan is rotated by a driving shaft that is powered by the turbine of the engine. A negative or vacuum pressure at the intake side is then created by the rotating fan. Next, the surrounding air is drawn towards the inlet and causes it to flow into the gas turbine engine inlet (Cengel & Boles, 2011). At the same time, the pressure on the other side of the fan is increased as it is compressed at a lower pressure ratio and causes the air in the outlet side of the fan to move fu...
In order to have a fast and efficient car all these things I have discussed need to be taken into consideration. A fast car should be designed with aerodynamic surfaces for a balance of maximum production of downforce and minimum drag creating surfaces. It should have as small an engine as possible to reduce mass and reduce the necessary size of the frontal area, but a large enough engine to be able to produce enough horsepower to be able to create more force than the resistance the car faces to accelerate and enough to balance with those forces at high speeds. The tires should be wide enough for fast acceleration and good cornering but not so wide it creates large amounts of rolling resistance. Your overall best example of such a car would be formula one races or Indy cars because they have to have good handling, fast acceleration and reach and maintain high speeds.
Since most Asian Americans in the late 70s and 80s drove Japanese imports, they could not compete with the much more powerful Detroit muscle cars. This resulted in a street-racing scene consisting solely of modified imports. But a lack of aftermarket parts to make the various Toyotas Hondas and Nissans go faster meant that drivers often used nitrous oxide as the best way to compete. As the competition increased, so did the speed and danger. One Asian American who had a vision to race safely also wanted to race at the local drag strip. Unfortunately the track was only reserved for V8's, Mustangs, or Cameros.
Even when cars capable of these speeds are put into the hands of world-class drivers such as Ferrari’s Michael Shumacher and McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen, mishaps are bound to occur. This is what makes this sport so exciting to watch. Crashes however, are not the only exciting events of the race. It is thrilling to watch a car out brake another in order to squeeze its way ahead, or to watch the cars bump tires in an effort to occupy the same piece of race track to be set up correctly for the turn ahead. Other points of interest are the pit stops and the strategies that the various teams use in order to make a fast pit stop.
Cars are the ultimate symbol of independence and individualism. They offer more than freedom. No other man made creation but car fulfills a man’s ego. Technology has been the evidence of how cars have evolved for about more than a century now. From a first car packing a single cylinder 958cc, 0.75hp engine to today’s most powerful 8000cc W16, 1300bhp Veyron. We live in such an engineering savvy era where even an increase of few grams in a vehicle’s weight means going back to the drawing board to get unerring dynamic performance. And for these exuberant reasons, mechanical engineering was a mere choice rather than a chance for me.