| Big Blue24 |
08-08-2018 09:32 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich dzl
(Post 2677188)
This is Why pulling trucks run fuel dump valves and billet air gates and cable around engines .. drag racing has a lot to learn in this area... what lube was you it running in the fuel to protect plungers from sticking ..
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Haisley Machine Red Hot pulling fuel additive at specified dosage with fresh pump diesel was the fuel in the cell. The truck does have a 3-way fuel dump valve, unfortunately Todd was not practiced enough on it to find it at 140+ MPH. Keep in mind this was during the most violent acceleration that truck has ever seen on the drag strip as 960 cc's of fuel was forced into it with a block that could handle the power. And most pulling trucks do not run triples with dual water/air coolers and have 6 miles of piping to worry about venting safely so billet air gates work for them might not work for this application. Due to packaging constraints, there was barely enough room to fit the air filters and keep a functional hood. The BD Positive Air Shutoff in conjunction with the Blow-off valve had worked with a 100% success rate several times before hand both in testing and other emergency shutdown situations that had already occurred. Nothing is 100% fail safe, A puller with large triple setup could have one atmospheric charger blow up and take out the shut down cable and the remaining good chargers could still have a run-away and no way to shut it down. The biggest advantage a puller has is they are going slow with a sled tied to them that will eventually stop them. If you've never been 140+ MPH in a hot truck that is accelerating at full power, you have no idea the panic you'd feel as a driver trying to figure out how to get it stopped. The only valid argument you made is the safety cable around the engine and to be honest, we weren't leaning on it hard enough to need a cable... yet, but with the bottom half of the block in 8 separate pieces, who knows if the cables would have been tied into the correct threaded boss on the block to even retain the upper half, unless they were tied to the motor mounts then you'd at least have the frame to keep the cable in place. A cable is something we'll consider, especially as we lean on it harder next time.
There's no simple solution, there's no fingers to point. This was a freak series of events that with perfect hindsight, might still have occurred if the series of events happened perfectly wrong the next time. Luckily no one was hurt and the world gets to see the awesome carnage of an 8k RPM 12valve! |
