Mysterious racing Fuels - Hydrazine? Green Flames? Anybody know about this?

No wonder the pistons were complaining

 

Ah-HAAA! So how does this work then? Does Bob t! and I both get partial credit???

 

Yup. Even though most of it was pure bullshit, I look back fondly at the over hyped hyperbole and vivid story telling that was part of the track publicity then.

There were real instances of Hydrazine + Nitromethane going hypergolic. Shit, that's how I came to know what hypergolic means.

 

The late Bill Burnham spoke of experimenting with it in a fuel flathead, he also said they tried picric acid. Said it turned the cylinder walls into a spider web of cracks.

 

Of course you guys get credit. I just happen to know which aluminum alloy has copper in them

 

If ya' want to know a bit about about
using hydrazine 'back in the day', check
this out!

"Drag Racing Pioneers Or Suicidal Nutjobs?"
http://euclidsbridge.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/drag-racing-pioneers-or-suicidal-nutjobs/
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Mart3406
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Some 25 years ago I talked with a driver that ran an altered wheelbase car at York U. S. 30 dragway back in the 60s. He shared a story about using Hydrazine. I'm guessing he had heard about its ability to explode. He told me a guy was adding it to the tank, and was shaking so badly, that he said to the guy, "quit shaking or you'll blow us all up". True story, but I withheld the name of driver out of respect.
In a related story from the glory days of York U. S. 30, promoter Bill Holtz had as a feature one night, a dragster that was supposed to be running "rocket fuel". Back then the dragsters smoked the tires the entire 1/4 mile, but this night was different. It was a windless night, everything was still, and when the car left the line it sent two curtains of smoke straight up about 20 feet into the air as it went down the track, and the smoke stayed there for a long time. People went out on the track and were trying to touch the smoke. It was unbelievable. After the run, I looked the car over in the pits and noticed a very small tube tack welded to the header tube closest to the rear tire on both sides of the dragster. They were spraying something on the tires that caused the smoke to hang in the air. Never found out what it was, but it wasn't rocket fuel.

 

I never witnessed a run on hydrazine that I know of, but was told that a crewman would put a couple of drops in the tank right before the car staged. That way there was less time for the hydrazine to “cook” in the tank. Problems arose when there was trouble on the track, a wrecked car or an oil down could make for some frantic work by the crew at that point.

 

Never had any contact with hydrazine, although this isn't the first time I heard of it. We played around a bit in open class go kart dirt oval racing with something called "propylene oxide", adding it to a methanol/nitro methane mix. Wicked fast, brought tears to the eyes of all around pits and starting line.
Son bought it at a place that swore him to secrecy about where he bought it, gave no receipt and accepted only cash. Always heard that if NHRA caught you with the stuff you were barred for life.

 

Another not so fun bi product of H was that white shock sensitive explosive junk that would form in the carbs.
so even if you made a few passes with a driving car you could still get a nasty surprise just from taping the carbs.

 

This article was in Car Craft in the mid 60's

 

Notice how content heavy those old articles were, full of information, and written with a purpose. Like a different planet. Speaking of.. sort of.

The Grumman lunar lander during Apollo used hypergolic fuels for simplicity and reliability. The ascent engine simply had to work. If it didn't - well, the astronauts were stuck on the Moon.

But, hydrazine and the other stuff was so corrosive that while the engine design itself was of course thoroughly tested, there was no test firing possible of any specific lunar module ascent engine. The first (and only) time they would be fired, was on the Moon. They had to be perfect.

 

I read that Car Craft article back in the day.... Thought the stuff sounded exciting, and dangerous. Turns out nitro was good enough to thrill me.

 

So I have a couple 400 Ford motors kicking around... Building a blown alky currently but this stuff looks neat! Maybe fog it in the runners so it doesn't collect in the carbs and reduce risk of explosion in a nitro motor? Hmmmm this'll be something to try in a street car for sure!

-JW McIntyre
(Scatter shield required)

 

Or not.

 

Damn old thread! Dangerous shit, it was used in the Turbonique drag axles

 

No, I have talked with George Hutcheson himself a bit about the Turbonique that was in the US 1 dragster that he drove and although I forget the actual fuel they used, it wasn't Hydrazine.

 

Oops, I stand corrected. It was Thermolene (N-propyl nitrate) or isopropyl nitrate monopropellant

 

I had a chance to use it in my blown nitro hemi altered wheelbase dodge. A guy I met at a track had some left over from the sixties. He was willing to give me what he had. After talking to some old times and doing some research I chose not to use it. I'm glad I did. Years later I learned about the high cancer risk.

 

The German ME 163 Komet’s rocket engine used a propellant called C-Stoff, combining methanol and hydrazine hydrate. The C-Stoff was oxidized with a hydrogen peroxide. nasty nasty nasty!

 

Back about 20 years ago, my son and I had a dirt track go cart in open class on outlaw tracks. It really was his and he drove it, and I just sorta helped out financially and worked on it, using techniques I remembered from the last days of Flathead Fords competing head to head with the OHV V8s on oval tracks. Our engines had to be based on the 5hp B&S flathead, and the Ford Flathead tactics and techniques on a reduced scale worked well!
We routinely ran 85% methanol and 15% nitro, and then we started experimenting with a chemical that I think was called propylene oxide. I know it was propylene, just not sure the 2nd word was oxide. The chemical supply house that sold it to him refused to give a receipt for the sale as it was said to be very dangerous, and that if you were drag racing in NHRA and they caught you with it, you were banned for life!
Added quite a bit of power till it blew the entire cylinder off the enbloc casting that incorporated the crankcsase and cylinder in one solid casting!

 

I remember hearing it was very corrosive and played hell with the throttle shafts causing them to stick.

 

Bobby Langley was my grandma’s cousin.

I lived in Everman and saw him a little.

That was long before I was into cars and I had no idea about this.

Man I wish I could pick his brain now...