Big Blue24
Comp Diesel Sponsor
Why is there no guillotine shutoffs used in drag racing?
There's a ton of pressurized volume trapped between the inlets of the triples and the miles of tubing and 2 water/air coolers. We were a little concerned with how well a pair of guillotines would work on the inlets, real estate is tight in that part of the drag truck, and synchronizing 2 shutoffs sounded complicated. For simplicity, it seemed prudent to incorporate a single air shut-off as close to the intake as possible on the side of the engine with lots of free space along with a blow off valve to protect the 15k worth of GTX55 turbos. The shutoff has been used several times with successful immediate engine shutdowns and zero damage to the turbos, or engine, or injection pump.
This was a freak failure at precisely the wrong time (throttle stuck/rack hung) and unfortunately it cost us the entire engine setup and some of the truck body.windshield. Fortunately for us, no one was injured!