If there is one thing I have learned in nearly 20 years around professional drag racing it is that nitromethane is both the angel on your shoulder and the devil at the same time. It’s the fuel that seems to indicate that you’re making enough power to go fast enough at the same time enticing you to go faster. Take this video for example. You are going to see a Suzuki Gsx-R 1100 drag bike on the chassis dyno.
This machine has a turbocharged inline four engine and likely hauls all kinds of ass. The fellows that run this motorcycle have a jug of nitromethane that they dump bunch of into the gas tank. How much? What’s the mix? I have no idea. I do know that the engine disliked whatever that math was.
How can I tell? Oh, generally speaking when someone on a motorcycle has to reposition their body to stop from being struck by the parts and metal chunks the bike is barfing at them, it is bad. Following the pull there are a series of photos that show the extent of the international’s damage to the engine. One of the pistons is completely gone. Turned back into some sort of elemental form, it just does not exist. The head is mangled and there’s not telling on what happened below decks.
We DO kind of wish that they had at least given us the horsepower number before the whole thing went pear-shaped!
