johnelliott
Member
16th Funny Car championship--what a tough ole bird! Hard for me to understand why Castrol and Ford sponsorship is going away??? John
16th Funny Car championship--what a tough ole bird! Hard for me to understand why Castrol and Ford sponsorship is going away??? John
Top Fuel clutch is basically a centrifugal clutch, that has a pedal. There are a number of "fingers/levers" on the pressure plate that are weighted differently and are different height and lengths. When the RPM of the engine goes up and the clutch speeds up with it the centrifugal force on the fingers, which are mounted like a lever apply more pressure to the pressure plate reducing the clutch slip. The higher the RPM goes, the more counterweight force is transferred to the pressure plate.With only air valves to control the clutch. It takes a lot of guess work to make a Fuel Car make a quick pass
How do these air valves control the clutch that make it so easy to do ???
Maybe things have changed in 3 years
Last time I checked out the clutches they were basically centrifugal with fingers at different heights and weights but used a hydraulic cannon to hold the fingers from engaging. The cannon moved back allowing the fingers to move out and apply the clutch. IIRC 12 stages and the air only controlled when the cannon moved . You still needed to have the whole clutch package correct or it would lockup to soon or slip to much.
I still would rather go to an NHRA event than a NASCAR race.