Helped a buddy wrench on his Camaro drag car yesterday and got started down the rabbit hole that is nitrous oxide. I'd never really given it much thought, and talking with him about other possible design ideas taught me quite a bit.
My interest is piqued. Anybody got a recommendation for a thorough manual on how-to, what works and what doesn't and why?
Subbed, as my daughter is interested in doing nitrous as a science fair project
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :
If only I thought to put my bad habits in the guise of science fair projects. i can see it now... Are whippits, whippits good?
I don't know of any books, but Hotrod and CarCraft have had many in depth articles over the years. If you are looking into the history, Google Mike Thermos. He started NOS.
A book about nitrous, or a book to read while on nitrous?
In reply to bikerbenz :
Why not both?
You're welcome...
Seriously though, a lot of the Motorbooks titles are out of print. I was looking at one on Amazon a minute ago that was only available used and had a price of $95. Didn't seem very grassroots to me. There's a few others on Amazon too. I would likely turn my attention to YouTube. I can pretty much guarantee that there is a huge knowledge base showcasing tons of instructional videos on this topic. Some will suck. Some will be so so. A few will be exactly what you're looking for.
There is a lot of bad bordering on dangerous advice out there (espeically youtube). The individual manufacturers sights (NOS, Nitrous Outlet, Zex, etc) will have some good FAQ on the more practical aspects.
If you have specific questions, feel free to post them here. There is different thinking needed on small shots (= hp on the motor) and big shots (multiples of hp on the motor).
I read this back in 2003 or 2004. I honestly didnt pay much attn to the nitrous protion as I was more interested in the supercharging and turbocharging.... But maybe it's something?
This is the resource I used almost 20 years ago when I built my own budget system.
Lot's of good basic info here
If it's an older book, exploit your local library. WorldCat is amazing.
NO2 is magical stuff you can flip a switch that will make your pistons come out the tail pipe!
Not really, it's not evil, not dangerous, won't break your motor if you do it right.
If you do it wrong you will be the first to know as it will push the dip stick out or belch fire out the intake.
First advice is NO DRY SHOTS. (crap shoot)
Second advice is more than a 75 shot on a V8 you should port inject it to get individual cylinder AFRs where it will live. Don't try to rely on an intake manifold to properly distribute fuel. It would need little guys with detour signs in there to get the same AFRs on each cylinder.
Third is spark timing, if you don't pull it back enough, your pistons will exit the motor via the tail pipe. In practice This really needs to be automated and well controlled.
Honestly, if you have to ask about a book, it's probably best to have a pro set the fuel, spark, and NOS map, at least the first time.
In reply to kb58 :
Oh absolutely. I know that I don't know enough, and truthfully, I have no plans to put nitrous on anything I own. Mostly just curious to know more about the theory and engineering of what works well.
You'll need to log in to post.
