Tell me a tale of Nitro!!

[Brooks]

Has anyone personally witnessed, or been in a car running Nitro - street cars I'm talking about. I think it is tough on the car and only works in high RPM but what are the real pros and cons of it? Do many people use it? It seems like a damn cheap way to get some crazy 0-60 times.

Brooks

 

[JoeKing]

you go BOOM

 

[Gustavus]

I don't think you are talking about nitrous oxide -- that is laughing gas and is non-inflammable. I am not a car man, but you probably have in mind nitrobenzene or some similar compound. For blasting I use a two component system -- one of which is nitromethane or nitrobenzene and the other is ammonium nitrate -- which gives a high brissance reaction that breaks up the rock instead of just heaving it as dynamite does.

 

[Brooks]

ok maybe not nitrous oxide then ;0

 

[Redneck]

Firdt of,lets not confuse nitro(nitromethane) with nitrous oxide.Nitromethane is a fuel, that is only run in highly prepared racing engine because of its power and its cost ~40USD a gallon, with nitrous oxide which is an oxidizer that is used in conjunction with standard gasoline.I havent personally witnessed it, but have read about it.Yes,most people only activate nitrous at full throttle.It is priimarily used in drag racing because of the fact you can only carry a limited amount and various other reasons. You can boost your horespower anywhere from 50 to who knows how much when run with a big-block V-8, but you must remember that the more horsepower you wwant to add with nitrous the more preparation you have to do to the engine in order for it to survive the extra starain put on the engine. A stock american V-6 or V-8 can usualyy take up to a 100 horespower kit stock, but i dont know about imports etc. The most important thing when using nitrous is fuel delivery. If you dont add enough fuel along with the nitrous you get detonation(?) which destroys your engine. You can add fuel by two means. some lower horespower kits for newer cars with Fuel injection work by instructing the computer to deliver more fuel when the nitrous is on. The other method is to supply another fuel line which is activated when the nitrous is. This may not be completely accurate, but should give you some idea.

BTW, Brooks, make sure you check out my reply in the potato gun thread.

 

[atom]

Actually it is nitrous oxide. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it cools down the intake charge and allows more oxygen per volume than regular air. Sort of a quick burst of adreneline for your car.

I see a lot of wannabe racers (a lot of riceboys, but not limited to) have this in daily drivers, which I think is pretty dumb. It works well though, I've seen a lot of cars run NOS kits becasue it's so cheap.

 

[Brooks]

Redneck

Sorry - I'll check the potato thread now

So does anyone know how much this costs...? I think just the coolness factor of saying u have it in your car is frigging sweet...I don't really plan on sticking it in my 99 horse power '89 accord, although when the bastard dies it would be fun to first really blow its engine apart with nitro and see how it does

Brooks

 

[WombatWoman]

Nitrous oxide, the very same gas used by dentists and hippies, is indeed used in racing. Interesting info here:

http://www.5150.org/nitrous/

Medical-grade nitrous is not easy to obtain, however. The tanks of nitrous oxide used in racing have been deliberately contaminated with some sort of unpalatable sulphurous substance, and the gas is extremely yucky when inhaled.
Don't ask me how I know.

 

[drboogie]

Wow! Dentists and hippies mentioned in the same sentence! I'm in good company, I guess ...

 

[catseye]

As a confessed ex-drug fiend, I do believe that the nitrous oxide used in racing is chemically identical to that used in the dentist office. Much to my dissapointment, most racing nitrous has an additive that makes it taste horrible so people don't sit around and suck it out of a baloon. Makes the good stuff much harder to get, but it could be had for about $180 per 80 pound tank (tank not included). Nevertheless, there were a few performance shops that had clean nitrous to sell to hippies like me.

Racing nitrous puts an incredible stess on engines. If you drag, you are accustomed to rebuilding every few heats anyway (not to mention that the engine itself has been blueprinted for maximum power) so the additional stress is mitigated. If you don't like rebuilding engines every few weeks, stay away from it. It'll eat your engine up in a hurry. I'd guess one mile nitrous injected == 50,000 miles of regular driving, but thats just a guess.

 

[Brooks]

Seriously though WW how DO you know?!?!

 

[Redneck]

from http://www.nosnitrous.com,a pretty big name in nitrous

#5122 -- OEM Fuel Injection Nitrous Systems - Domestic and Import
DRY MANIFOLD STYLE KIT FOR MOST MULTIPORT FUEL INJECTED
APPLICATIONS 1.5L-2.3L
Price $565.53
and
http:///www.nosnitrous.com/page12.html

they also explain how nitrous works etc.

 

[Brooks]

catseye I sure as heck can't rebuild an engine

From what I read about it though, if you're _careful_ it doesn't look THAT bad on the engine...And hell, its a damn lot of power.

 

[catseye]

I bet you are right. The only case I've read about is professional drag racers. One mile to them is probably already 50000 miles to us at least.

 

[Redneck]

catseye, I think thats a little off. Unless you run extreme amounts (enough for 200+ horespower) of nitrous in a racing only engine, you arent going to be be rebuilding your engine very often. Like i said, it all depends on how much you run. A 50-100 horespower kit can be run in a mildly prepped engine and can still easily be your daily driver for years.

 

[Brooks]

Hmm, adding another 50 HP to my 99 car would finally give me a little uphill speed...course the tires are so crappy they already peel on a breath of air, I'd liklely burn them to death running nitro, plus the engine with 120,000 miles on it is in no shape for that.

Brooks

 

[WombatWoman]

Brooks, if you are serious, you might check out this site (while it is aimed at Mazda owners, much of the info is generic):

http://www.turbomx5.com/nitro1.htm

 

[Gustavus]

Brooks,
Sorry for the bad info -- as I said, I am not a car man, but I did know for sure that nitrous oxide is noninflammable which is one of the reasons for it's use in dentistry. A long time ago dentists occasionally blew up patients when they used ethyl ether and/or chloroform. I never considered that nitrous oxide could be a source of oxygen.

 

[Brooks]

A long time ago dentists occasionally blew up patients when they used ethyl ether and/or chloroform. I

HAHAHAHHAHAHA Although tragic, there is definitely some humour in that

Brooks

 

[catseye]

Not to mention that its easy to overdose on ether and chloroform and kill your patient without setting them on fire.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

Brooks

Here is a tale of when nitro goes bad....way bad

http://www.enhancedhealth.com/NOS2.htm

 

[Monel Funkawitz]

I had it on a 71 Olds Cutlass. 350 Rocket pushing around 520HP on the bottle.

BTW, Nitrous at low RPM (>3K) = Bent Connecting Rods

Make sure your pistons are deburred, timing is set, and bottom end is bullet proof like hell

 

[ratkil]

Brooks, Depending how much you are going to use it, The entry level nitrous kits don't require much for engine modifications. They usually add about 125 horses. I haven't had a lot of experience with kits for fuel injected cars but the entry level kits usually have a plate with two nozzles that inject both nitrous and gas at the same time. This overcomes the possibility of leaning out on the gas while using the nitrous, which as someone mentioned above, is a bad thing. Depending on the car, you will probably never use it more then a second or two at a time. You don't want to kick it in until you are at least midway through the powerband and always only at full throttle, so the RPM's will climb pretty quickly and you will have to let off when hitting redline. If you go for something above an entry level kit the expenses rise. One reason is instead of a plate you have to start porting the injectors into your manifold, and usually should go with forged pistons, crank and connecting rods. You can get pretty nuts with the stuff though. I saw a kit that added over 1200 horses, guy must have had like a mile of line running to all the injectors....

Used to be pretty easy to get the bottles filled, this was like 8 years ago, don't know if it has gotten harder. Cost was about $2 a pound then. One thing to keep in mind is pressure in the tanks flucuates greatly with heat, so if your trunk or whereever the tank is heats up, performance will be greater, but so will possibility of problems.

Hint: Try to never let a burst of excaping gas touch bare skin.....entertainment for onlookers, pain and annoyance for you......

 

[Bozo Galora]

Had a friend who had a full race acid dipped Camaro (given to him by factory). The compression on the pistons was so high, he couldn't get gas of high enough octane at pumps to keep from pinging/detonating, so he hooked up water injection system. Man, when he kicked the water on that 500 horse pig would RUN!!! Some of the most exciting runs to the 7/11 you could imagine.

 

[riceboi5]

Brooks, you can get a Direct Port NoS Setup for 40-50hp. Each Nozzle is plumbed to the intake manifold and injects the correct ammount of fuel and nos. If installed correctly it will be very reliable. Should get your Accord to do Low 7's 0-60mph for about $600-$800 or so.