[Fot] what happens when you mix hydrazine with nitromethane

[Kurt Oblinger]

I have a friend who is a long time drag racer. From what he's told me 
the NHRA banned nitro back in the mid-60's requiring the use of 
gasoline. Some racers dosed their gas with hydrazine (illegal). The 
stuff was highly unstable when mixed with gas so they would add it at 
the last minute and then make sure they ran the tank dry before 
shutdown. One time a driver shut down before all the fuel was gone after 
a run. Several minute later, after being pulled back into the pits, the 
residual hydrazine laced fuel in the combustion chambers lit off, 
blowing the heads off the engine. Another time, when the dragsters were 
in the staging lanes just before their turn to run, there was a delay 
when another car oiled down the track. The crew chiefs could be seen 
pulling off the fuel tanks from the rails and dumping the contents in 
the dirt along side the track. Hydrazine used to give a green tinge to 
the exhaust flame, thus the saying "If it's burnin' green he's runnin' 
hydrazine."

Cheers,
Kurt O.

On 12/1/2010 3:55 PM, toodamnfunky at comcast.net wrote:
> http://www.competitionplus.com/2004_10_21/hydrazine.html
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> I have never seen anything like this. And where exactly did the block and heads go ?
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> Jim G.
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> fot at autox.team.net