This Might Just Be One Of The Hardest Hitting 392’s We Have Heard in a Awhile!

Modern top fuel engines are insanely powerful, but if you look at the actual components in the engine, they’re relatively low tech. There’s not a modern electronic fuel injection system that can come close to feeding the demands of 11,000 horsepower, and while the ignition systems are precisely controlled, as far as I know there are no “fuel maps” where each individual cylinder’s timing event can be controlled like what you find in Formula 1, for example.

These cars rely on pure brute strength and well-built parts to churn out the power it takes to blitz the 1,000 foot strip in just over three and a half seconds at speeds of 330+ MPH. The data loggers are perhaps the most advanced electronics on the car, and they certainly do a great job of showing the crew chiefs and tuners exactly what’s going on inside the engine and within the car itself from nose to tail, but that’s simply gathering data, not controlling the engine itself.

My point to all of this is, if you look back a few decades, things really haven’t changed all that much. Sure, everything is built out of billet aluminum now and has been pushed to the absolute maximum as far as efficiency goes, but you still have a block, a crank, 8 pistons, a cam, the valvetrain, a big ol’ supercharger and an injector hat.

This nostalgia top fuel dragster’s 392 cubic inch HEMI really isn’t too far removed from what you might find nestled in the frame rails of Antron Brown’s MATCO Tools dragster or Jonnie Lindberg’s Head Racing Inc. Funny Car. With a crowd of anxious onlookers gathered around, the car’s owner fires up the gnarly engine and lets it idle for a couple of minutes, tweaking the fuel flow to make the engine “cackle” and spit searing hot nitromethane-fueled flames that are visible in the brand daylight.

This is something that goes on at almost all nostalgia drag races, so if this gets your heart pumping, head out to the next throwback race in your area and check it out for yourself, because I can promise you, no matter how good your sound system is, there’s nothing like being there just feet from these engines while they’re running like this.