Richard, love the list. I can definitely attest to the violence associated with the motor losing spark early in the run, I was working the finish line in vegas a few years back when Scelzi lost the flames @ about 800' the resulting explosion was unreal! I had stuff flying by me like you would not believe, not to mention the entire rear half of the body trying to land on me. Aah good times, no harm no foul.

Of course some of them get cooked, but not all of them and not all of the time. I know Richard Brady was commissioned to photograph the 16 plugs removed from a Top Fueler after an event winning round, by a spark plug manufacturer to use in advertising. All 16 looked new.

...and if you really think about it, if compression ignition was common, how could a fuel motor drop cylinders on the top half of a run without having pushed head gaskets?

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Is Jay talking about the first Johnny Gray post on the 'old' Mater that caused so much BS?

Not sure about Bernstien, but I saw Richard Tharp blow the mag into the air before half track at Indy (mid-70's, not sure exact year) when he was driving Candies & Hughes Top Fuel car. The car just kept right on makng it for the finish line. It was weird.

Yeah Ron, they did... But I also remember that back then they were running something like 9.5 to 1 compression... and they didn't lose all the mags...

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I work on ignitions & we have done some work for a A/FD team & yes the plugs are just glowplugs from 330' on. The team sent us plugs that were from doing 60' shots & they were over 50% burnt up. They sent us plugs that have been on passes from the 5.15 range to 5.65 & they all looked the same.

Yeah, the idea of being able to "diesel" to the finish line and ignition rev limiters doing anything do seem to contradict each other. If the engine were running on compression from a certain point on, you'd think someone would have had a timed release clutch on the mags to save the power required to turn them.

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That does sound familar, though I'm not positive on who posted it. I do remember the poster catching a lot of cr@p for posting it.

It's looks like i'm causing another firestorm, can we please chill-out on weather or not the spark plugs going nuclear?

Thanks again,

Jay