Alcohol dragster?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by rx dealer

I will stick with my original post about the brakes on the nitro and alcohol cars...does anyone have a photo of a nitro/alcohol dragster or funny car brakes and lets compare it to a formula 1 car brakes...let the photo's do the the talking...it's time to stop using outdated brake design...Luke SS 311

Have you ever tried to stop a dragster really quickly from 150MPH or more without a parachute? You have more than enough brakes to stop the tire already on just about any modern dragster. The problem is when you try to stop the car quickly, the back tires will quickly begin to bounce, the more brake you apply, the more, harder, and higher it bounces. I've seen a dragster with 13x31 tires get 3 feet off the ground trying to stop quickly at 140MPH.

You could put another 4 piston caliper on each rear wheel with a 12" rotor. It would not matter, you cannot use that much brake. The back tires will go 3 feet in the air.

The front tires on dragsters and funny cars are designed to steer the car, not designed to exert or withstand a great deal of braking force. They have neither the contact area nor the strength necessary to generate any real stopping force. The front suspension and the frames are not designed to withstand that sort of force either.

You simply cannot just hang some great big brakes on a car without first designing the car and the tires to use the brakes. Drag cars and the tires used on them simply are not designed for big brakes and the forces they generate.