The number has almost always been a guess. Back in the 1970s the number was 1,500hp…then it became 2,500hp, and then 5,000, 7,000, up to today’s commonly thrown out 10,000hp estimate for the output of the engine in a Top Fuel car. It has always been slide rule stuff and that’s not to say that slide rules are inaccurate, but we live in a “show me” world and so we can say it all night long about how much fuel it uses and the elapsed times and speeds, but people want to SEE the power measured somehow. Thankfully there was a company wanting to try it in the form of AVL Racing, and a team willing to be the testbed in the form of the US Army Top Fuel dragster as tuned by Mike Green and Neal Strausbaugh. Lastly and not least, the team from Race Engine Technology magazine was on hand to follow the whole deal.

With an allotment of one run at Maple Grove Raceway in Pennsylvania the AVL Racing torque sensing device was installed on the coupler that ties the output shaft of the clutch and the rear end together. The way the device works is explained in the video by a representative of the company and he’s way better than us at doing that so you’ll get that from the embedded footage below.

The biggest question before you press play is whether the engines will live up to the heady estimates that we have made over their performance for years, right? Is it a let down to see that the thing “only” makes 8,500? Is it jubilation to find out that it makes 13,000? We’re not going to tell you how this thing goes down. You have to watch for yourself!

Press play below to see how Don Schumacher Racing and AVL Racing went testing –