I see alot of people who build their rods to race useing blowers, but not so many useing nitrous. its been used on automotive engines since the late 40's but mostly in Gms merlin series motors in planes. im sure a couple people around here use it but i havent heard any of it and was just wondering the reasoning.
I use it and think it's a legit power adder. I don't use it on my model a ford engine because it would look silly in a period engine compartment. Even on tough modern cars don't act surprised when you make enough hp to disentegrate expensive clutches etc. Ask me how i know?
1- Not as visually impressive 2- Not always understood by the masses 3- Many people build for show vs. go 4- Something of a prejudice against it by certain folks...consider it cheating...or like it's the easy way out- "I don't need nitrous to make power, unlike YOU" 5- The buy-in can be fairly expensive, depending on how much engine mgmt. you plan to do with controllers 6- Watch any of the Fast And The Furious movies & you'll develop a dislike for "NOSS" Personally I'm a fan, when the system is engineered properly & the engine is designed/built for it....
im more interested in learning more about how early nitrous setups were (or not) being used on earlier builds... in particular what the setups looked like (solonoids, lackthereof, or how they really used it.) i'd love to see some early setups, so if anyone has anything-- please share. -scott noteboom
well when it was first introduced it was used basicly in primitive injection system. it was used in aircraft because at high altitude because low oxygen content at altitude. it was the same setup as current dry systems. it was way safer to use it dry in high atltitude than it is closer to sea level because you really werent adding so much oxygen that it leaned out the fuel misture. understandably people complain that its cheating and all that jazz but it play to the advantage of driveability. you have power on tap, with a blower you lose a little bit of streetability depending on your setup. Engines are my passion i wouldnt even say cars really are just the things that make them go so im fascinated by everything and i mean everything. The proper use of n2o is a fascinating process as well as the properties of the compounds and how they are used efficently. i know alot of people hate it though.
I'll bet some of the fighter pilots and mechanics coming back from WW2 tried to adapt it to their cars. I don't know how they could have put more fuel into the system though. Doesn't seem like the technology was right at the time. I do remember that Ollie Olson had some sort of freon (or ?????) built into the removable frontend of his Willys. He was asked if it was legal. He said he really didn't know and no one ever looked in the front end when he took it off for tech! MAN, those Florida guys!!!!!!! LOL I don't really like nitrous, but...............you don't know when you might need just a little more. So I'm putting a 400 HP Big Shot System on my street Anglia. Larry T
I like it in a properly built motor. I have very little respect for nitrous in a stock street car, someone thinking they are hot shit with "noss". But I can appreciate an engine builder who sets out to use it, builds it with the proper compression ration, and builds the car to run it.
I see a NOS solenoid on this 60's V 12 build. This "10,000 rpm" solenoid is actually used as a fuel enrichment system but it goes to show the technology has been around for quite some time. If you have owned a 500 - 600 hp traditional ride you know about the noise, fuel costs, and general care and feeding of an engine like that is tough. 350 hp on the motor and 200 on the bottle when the need arises is damn fucking convenient. Naysayers can talk trash while they pay at the pump and watch my license plate get smaller. What's comp ratio have to do with NOS?
Scott, I've got a few pictures...nothing much to look at, really. For the most part they consisted of either rubber hoses, or, in a couple of cases, nylon oil pressure line...usually with regular plumbing brass fittings... So far as routing, usually crude...sometimes just into the air filter with a crude nozzle or brass spray bar, done with soldered & drilled tubing... Solenoids were either aircraft hydraulic units, or converted Line-Loc units, which themselves were originally some kind of aircraft surplus. Filters, if any, were home A/C units. Dunno if that helps much....the orignal systems were home-brewed, and looked like it. Now, when it comes to DISGUISED systems from the '70s & '80s, I've got a little more info.
Nitrous is cheap easy horsepower. Who can afford to drive around and cruise comfortable with a high horse power engine? I sure can't do it in my supercharged '55. With nitrous you can turn that power on and off. A basic plate system is easy to install and tune. My last engine was a stock bottom end worn out 400 sbc. I threw a set of dart heads and a good carb and intake on it. The cast pistons handled a 300 hp shot all race season. I did find out the limits of a cast trw piston. A 450 hp shot took care of that.
So far as combustion ratio & NOS, the answer is, it depends. (like always...) Nitrous, when first activated, produces an instantaneous spike in cylinder pressure which characteristics are very different from other power-adders. Depending on the piston type & design, it may be able to last under this, with the N/A compression....or, not. If you have everything right from a mixture & timing point of view...and the engine components are able to handle it...and the cylinder will remain sealed...and the castings are strong enough...and the ignition & fuel systems are capable of supplying the necessary.........................for whatever particular amount of nitrous you are using..................compression ratio isn't really an issue.
well with the addition of oxygen which is really what n2o offers because nitrogen isnt volatile cylinder pressures increase but very little. as far as a piston setup using forged pistons is the best setup curent motors use hypereutectic pistons or hypoeutectic pistons. while these can be used they wont last long and they tend to do gnarly things even with small amounts of nitrous. im not exactly sure of the percentages but hypereutectics use less silicone than hypos. as everyone know the more silicon you use they lower the melting point will be. the more oxygen you add to a lean fuel mixture will turn your plugs into a cutting torch. it takes more work than thought to make nitrous safe as well as reliable just liek a blower. the propertys are the same they both introduce oxygen to the system n2o just uses the addition of fuel as well as an oxygen supplement. I just wasnt sure if people had a beef with using it because its not traditional or something. if anyone has or could locate pictures of early 50's systems that would be awesome to check out. i know they were only used as an experiment on us aircraft but was a regular addition to british air craft.
Sorry, not accurate....look at two charts of BMEP (brake mean effective pressure) for two dyno runs on the same engine, one with nitrous vs. one without. BMEP, which is theoretical, uses torque figures & displacement to calculate the avg. (mean) pressure exerted on the piston during the complete power stroke. This pressure is what would be required to produce the measured torque. Of course the pressure changes from the top of the stroke to the bottom of the stroke, continually, which is why the BMEP is an overall average (mean) as opposed to a specific instant. Since the torque (and therefore horsepower at a given corresponding point) goes up with nitrous, it follows that the BMEP, or plain ol' cylinder pressure if you prefer, MUST go up as well. More pressure exerted on the piston = more torque. Another example of this is to consider a cam profile that bleeds off a ton of cylinder pressure, specifically at lower RPM....the torque falls off as well, partly because of lower BMEP. This is one reason why cam profiles & dynamic compression ratios need to be carefully matched, PARTICULARLY so on for a street engine. This is also a reason why nitrous should not be used, in most engines, below about 3000-3500 rpm or so....the BMEP is too high for the various pieces to hold up.
Read this for nitrous facts: http://www.nitrousexpress.com/Pages/faq.htm Don't make nitrous difficult.
A friend of mine has a nitrous setup on his twin H hudson. He has yet to try it out though. He found a real old hudson tranny guy, and they made some sort of four disc cork clutch setup for the stock auto tranny.
Yep, you are right....too many times of hearing it that way, I guess...meant to type N2O... I defer to your superior knowledge & Photoshop skills.
An old school NOS system would be lame. Just hide it, You can run the lines thru the block, Nozzles could be in the actual intake ports, that would be way cool. Just don't show off the hidden system here, that would be gay.
The best go fast method in the world, If you were at the day of the Drags and seen the little Model a Grey Coupe you know what i mean.
Because of the higher cylidner pressures caused by nitrous, you need more detonation resistance from the fuel = higher octane needed. On pump gas engine this is the limiting factor. So you usually drop the static compression ration some to make up for it. You will make more power with a bigger nitrous shot and lower compression, than high compression and a small shot on pump gas. Its also the limiting factor for a maximum output engine on gasoline, you end up limited by the detonation resistance of the fuel. They usually drop the compression ration down from around 16:1 for a NA engine to about 14:1 for a juiced engine.
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