Nitrous is an extraordinary addition to any engine. It is one of the cheapest and most exciting ways to increase horsepower and over all performance of a car. Many people believe that nitrous isn't very safe and will destroy an engine quickly. Now, nitrous use can be much safer. Notice I said safer and not completely safe. Follow these guidelines and you'll have a much happier experience with a nitrous kit.

1. Spraying at too low a rpm. There is always a maximum amount of nitrous a piston can handle. Picture as the piston goes down on the intake stroke a little Elf is there with a measuring cup putting exactly the right amount of nitrous in the intake valve in relation to rpm. Each cylinder the same charge-perfect! Unfortunately that's not how things work. Since you have a nozzle and a solenoid with nitrous kits, it's like the elf has a garden hose that operates in two modes. Off or full blast. So now picture the Elf with a garden hose pouring full blast into your cylinder. The lower the rpms the longer it takes for the piston to move up and down so at low rpms there is more time to fill the compression chamber than at higher rpms because the piston travels faster. Nitrous sprays at the same rate all the time, so if you spray at low rpms you're gonna fill that compression chamber up full of a lot of nitrous and this is what grenades motors.

2. Over-reving- while this is bad for any engine it's especially bad for nitrous engines. that's why it's good to add a rev limiter to the fiero. The way the stock one works is if the engine reaches 6000 the fuel injectors cut off and the spark energy is lost all together, so all the unburned nitrous and fuel collects in your exhaust system until you drop back down below 6000 rpm and then at very least it makes your exhaust explode and it sends your muffler into orbit. At worst it blows your manifolds clear off your engine. Nitrous ever-revs engines faster and more severely than regular gasoline and air.

3. Lean out- there is so much oxygen released when N2O(nitrous) disassociates that it has the capacity to burn almost all engineering materials, even metal. Nitrous loves to combine with hydrocarbons(fuel) much more than it like to combine with metal, but if there's no fuel to burn the superactive oxygen will combine it self with say, your valves and piston tops and burn nice big holes through them. Big fuel pump is necessary and larger injectors would also be a nice addition.

4. Detonation- because a nitrous injected engine burns so much faster and hotter than an air/fuel charge it will go into detonation at the same timing than would be perfect for just gasoline and air. So on nitrous motors, a timing retard from 2-12 degrees total advance is needed. Nitrous detonation is much more severe than the normal "ping." It's shockwaves have the capacity to bend rods and crack piston tops. Another thing is that most people don't know what they're hearing. Nitrous detonation sounds more like the distant rumbling of thunder than elves with little hammers banging around under the hood. The bummer about a nitrous motor is the fact that it needs two timing curves. One normal and one about, for a 50hp shot for a fiero, 2-3 degrees retarded. So under normal conditions it makes the car sluggish and causes decreased fuel economy.

5. Misfires - Nitrous is more difficult to ignite than regular gas and if a misfire occurs it's harder on the engine for three reasons.

1. the forces involved are much higher and the jack hammer like torque

reversals, which occurs when a piston doesn't fire, are much more stressful.

2. inbound nitrous that dumps into exhaust expands faster and hotter more

significantly straining all the tubes and seals.

3. When a misfire occurs it tends to stay in the combustion chamber

longer than normal gas so the next time around there's a huge charge in there

when it ignites it jack hammers the engine in the reverse direction, and this

situation is far worse if the previous cylinder had also misfired, snap

reversing the torque, and then snap forwarding the torque. you need a much

more competent ignition system.

My recommendations for nitrous problems are a competent igntion system such as a jabob's electronics pro-street igntion system. Properly gapping plugs is also a big help. Adding a nitrous mastermind also by jacob's electronics is a tremendous improvement. Prevents 4 deadly ways nitrous can destroy your motor: Saves your engine from lean out by automatically shutting off the nitrous in 1/100th of a second when fuel pressure falls. Prevents detonation by switching in a retard timing curve only when nitrous is flowing. The rev-limiter stops flow of nitrous 50 rpm before limiting the spark, preventing exhaust system damage. Prevents nitrous flow at too low an rpm, even if you accidentally activate it at idle. You dial each of this in and you're good to go. So there you go, the pro-street ignition takes care of the misfire and the nitrous mastermind takes care of the other four.

HYPTNOTISE@aol.com

Back to Main Page