NITROUS OXIDE ( nos / n2o ) advice forum

Hi guys/girls, as stated in my thread title I'm a total newbie to all this nitrous business.

I've owned plenty already fast cars and bikes and modified them myself but I've become increasingly interested in fitting a full nitrous kit to my latest car.

It's my third MR2, 1 turbo import. 1 NA import and I've just got an absolute mint 1993 UK model.

Now I've got another 3s-gte engine I was going to rebuild, get a box, linkages, loom and driveshafts and do the usual NA to turbo conversion but a full, quality proffesionally installed nitrous system is looking very appealing. If for no other reason than its something different as opposed to all the tubby conversions out there.

What would I need (as in everything) to make the car as safe, reliable and driveable as possible?

What's a purge kit?

How much difference does a bottle heater make?

Can somebody explain the difference between wet or dry systems, I inderstand wet is "better".

What's a progressive system? Does this mean that the nitrous and fuel are added increasingly gradually to increase power in line with the throttle opening meaning a nice smooth increasing power delivery or are nitrous systems kind of all or nothing straight line kind of stuff?

Sorry for all the questions but as I stated I am a complete newbie to the "scene" so to speak.

Thanks in advance.

Chris.

Hi guys/girls, as stated in my thread title I'm a total newbie to all this nitrous business.

Hi Chris

I've owned plenty already fast cars and bikes and modified them myself but I've become increasingly interested in fitting a full nitrous kit to my latest car.

It's my third MR2, 1 turbo import. 1 NA import and I've just got an absolute mint 1993 UK model.

Now I've got another 3s-gte engine I was going to rebuild, get a box, linkages, loom and driveshafts and do the usual NA to turbo conversion but a full, quality proffesionally installed nitrous system is looking very appealing. If for no other reason than its something different as opposed to all the tubby conversions out there.

What would I need (as in everything) to make the car as safe, reliable and driveable as possible?
You have some options here Chris. You could go single point injection with a crossfire injector in the inlet near the TB. Or you could fit 4 injectors in the inlet manifold for a direct port system. My only MR2 was a MK1 which had a manifold that could easily be fitted for DP injection.

What's a purge kit?
A purge kit is used to ensure that liquid nitrous is available at the solenoid before a race / run. When you first turn the bottle on, the liquid nitrous will force its way as far as it can down the pipe to the solenoid. But there will be a chunk of air in the line to the solenoid that will be compressed and this will stop the liquid at some point. Once you have used the system and liquid nitrous has flushed air out of the system it will flow correctly. But when you shut the system down, the nitrous liquid in the lines will pick up heat from the surrounding air and it will expand to vapour. This vapour will push the nitrous liquid back towards the bottle. So you will end up with the feed line full of nitrous vapour instead of liquid. So we use the purge to blow off this vapour to make sure that liquid nitrous is right up to the solenoid ready for use. Trevs new Pulsoids have a purge port fitted so you can tap in a purge solenoid to fill the pulsoid body full of liquid nitrous to avoid any soft hits when you activate the gas.

How much difference does a bottle heater make?
A HUGE difference mate. You tune any car fuel system based on constant parameters such as fuel and air ratio's. And you need to do the same on any nitrous system. To make sure the effect is repeatable you need only two things ! Constant fuel pressure and flow, and constant nitrous pressure. So you need a bottle heater in cooler weather to make sure that you have at least 800 - 900 psi of nitrous pressure available. If you dont have correct bottle pressure and you try to tune the system in cold weather when the bottle can drop to 500psi you are pissing in the wind.

Can somebody explain the difference between wet or dry systems, I inderstand wet is "better".
A dry system is where you spend a shed load of money modifying your existng EFI fuel system and ECU to add extra fuel at the right amount to make up for the amount of nitrous you are running at any time. A wet system is where you add nitrous and fuel from the injector nozzle. The amount of fuel from the injector nozzle is set to flow enough fuel to match the mount of nitrous you are using. This leaves the cars existing fuel system to work as normal with no fancy electronic mods required.


What's a progressive system? Does this mean that the nitrous and fuel are added increasingly gradually to increase power in line with the throttle opening meaning a nice smooth increasing power delivery or are nitrous systems kind of all or nothing straight line kind of stuff?
A progressive system means just that. When you use a progressive controller you can programme it to deliver the nitrous as a smooth build instead of just chucking it all in at once. Trevs modern controllers can take all sorts into account on modern engines with TPS input and I'm not fully up to speed on these. I use a very old controller on my MGB which just gives me the option to select the amount of power I want to start with, and then the amount of time I want it to take to pulse my nitrous up to full power after I have gone to wide open throttle. This is all I need for my style of racing.


Sorry for all the questions but as I stated I am a complete newbie to the "scene" so to speak.
No probs Chris. We all had to start somewhere Dude!! It will take a while for you to get your head around the way nitrous works. Some of us get it and go on to do all sorts of mad things. Some folk dont get it, but they still do ok if they follow the advice you will find on here.

Thanks in advance.

Chris.

Regards
Perry

Hi Chris,
Thanks for joining our forum and for your interest in WON products.

Perry has already kindly provided comprehensive and independent answers to all of your questions, so all I need to offer now is a quotation. If you could please send a short e-mail to wizard@noswizard.com I will respond with the prices and details of the suitable systems and products that Perry suggested.

I look forward to assisting you in choosing the ideal WON set-up for you and your vehicle.

Regards,
Lisa

Hi Chris and Welcome to the Wizard of NOS

Just one addition to Perry's comprehensive reply (thanks for that Perry), a purge solenoid is ESSENTIAL when using a system that has braided SS hose between the bottle and the solenoid (as all US JUNK kits have) but with our standard systems (which use small bore nylon pipe) a purge is not essential, as i has very little volume and the pipe should be routed inside the car, so there is little heat to worry about.