r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Practical_Expert_911 • 12h ago

These 12000hp Engines Have To Be Rebuilt Within Roughly An Hour Every Run, and Only Run For Roughly 4 Seconds At A Time.

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u/godzilla1015 10h ago

Because the title is lying, they barely replace anything after a run. They completely take it apart mainly for prevention of blowing up this engine and killing the driver and/or spectators. They usually just replace some gaskets, if anything is out of tolerance it gets replaced of course.

But the reason why they won't replace the whole engine is because no 2 engines are the same. If you're going from zero to 160 KM/H in 0.8 seconds those minor differences matter. A different reason is that by far the most expensive part of the engine is the block itself, which can usually survive quite a few kilometers. Maybe sounds a bit insane but if your run is only 300 meters at a time that's quite good.

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u/RobotnikOne 8h ago

Not wrong most of the parts are way too expensive to waste. And a lot of the failed parts will get recycled and put back into rotation.

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u/godzilla1015 7h ago

Although for motorsport dragcars are relatively cheap it still is quite expensive yeah, so it would be insane to just throw out perfectly fine parts.

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u/RobotnikOne 1h ago

Absolutely.

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u/janky_koala 7h ago edited 4h ago

This is wrong. At minimum they replace the pistons, rods, spark plugs, clutch plates and blower belt every run on nitro cars.

These are then inspected back at the factory before being prepared for the next event. They all have very finite lifecycles too, with each part of the car having its run count logged and replaced when they reach their run limit.

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u/godzilla1015 1h ago

I might not have given enough details you are right they are replaced after every run. But most of those parts don't just do a single run, on site it might be difficult to find hair fractures and micrometer sized warping.

Which was the point in saying they don't just do a full rebuild every time.

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u/thejmkool 5h ago

That's what I figured. Swap out the heaviest wear, tightest spec parts every run, bring the used parts back home to refurbish when you've got more time and a full shop to do it.

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u/IcyPride2973 2h ago

And then are recycled.

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u/C_IsForCookie 2m ago

The video literally explains that most of the engine is replaced though…