well, I am very new to nitrous. Always thought it was insane and will tear your engine apart within a year, is this true? What needs to be done to the vehicle to have it n20 equipped? What is at risk using nitrous? If I am looking for a 75-100 shot, what would a nice yet affordable brand be? Thanks for any and all help for the N20 newbie.

 

If used properly nitrous is very safe and will give a huge performance increase. I can give you a very basic idea of how nitrous works. This is by no means the "whole story" its just the basic process by which nitrous makes power. Nitrous is two parts nitrogen and one part oxygen. The part that we are after to make more power is the oxygen. Injecting the nitrous gives you more oxygen in the air/fuel mixture. You must also add more fuel to the equation to go with the extra oxygen the nitrous has added. So now you have more oxygen and more fuel during combustion and you get more power. There are two basic types of nitrous systems available, wet and dry systems. The wet systems mix the fuel and nitrous together thru a spray bar or nozzle and inject them together. A dry system injects nitrous only and uses higher fuel pressure to squeeze more fuel thru the injectors with each pulse width. I personally like the wet systems better and I think they are safer, but I am also a Master Warehouse Distributor for NX(which only makes wet systems) so I am not an impartial judge so I wont go into my reasoning behind my beliefs. If you would like to know feel free to email me. You'll get some opinions both ways which is good for your research. As far as how your motor will hold up to nitrous, check with RacinLt1 who is a memeber here. He's had some pretty amazing result with a basically stock longblock with nitrous. Thanks

 

I agree with Steve that wet nitrous systems are the best for almost everyone. If you are using an aftermarket ECU that can separately control nitrous and fuel, then a dry system controlled by the computer is the more elegant way to go. But you wouldn't have asked your question if you were running a setup that sophisticated. A wet system is easily tuned and generally works fine with the factory recommended jets.

Couple of hints: the following accessories are really essential to get the most out of a nitrous setup: bottle heater (unless you live in a very warm climate), and a window switch. The window switch allow you to select the rpm to turn the nitrous on and off. You don't want it coming in too low (breaks parts, spins the tires) and you don't want to hit the rev limiter with the N2O on (breaks parts). A remote opener is nice to, but far from a necessity, and irrelevant if you mount the bottle within reach.

In terms of setup, a lot depends on how much N2O you plan to run. Larger shots will need a method to retard timing when on the juice and also need a cooler plug with a smaller gap. If you stick to small shots (75-100hp, maybe even up to 150hp) this isn't needed.

I went from 11.1 @ 130 to 10.2 @ 140+ with a twin nozzle NX kit jetted for 200hp. The track gains are in excess of expected for the hp gain, which is typical of nitrous especially in a heavy car. That big hit of torque at relatively low rpm really helps get the car launched and moving. MPH in the 1/8 went from 97.7 to 110.5

Rich Krause