NITROUS OXIDE ( nos / n2o ) advice forum

Fellow WON-inites,

I've been having an issue for the past few weeks with the engine shuddering with nitrous activated. I began troubleshooting the basics with the nitrous system to make sure all wiring connections were good with good earth, checked nitrous filters, swapped between full bottles, and more to find the gremlin. I found no issues whatsoever with my WON system, so I moved onto the engine. The first thing I checked were the plugs for signs of abnormal conditions such as excessively rich or lean ratios or detonation, but the plugs were all fine and I even re-gapped them to make sure that I didn't make an error there.
My suspicion was that the ignition system was weakened somehow because there were no changes to the nitrous jetting and the problem seemed to pop up suddenly. So the last thing I checked was my coil pack and I found the problem: the spring type contacts that attach to the spark plug was cocked and made poor contact with #2 cylinder.


The engine ran fine without nitrous yet the problem would appear immediately with it activated after a few seconds. It felt like an unpurged system.

After I straightened everything out, the engine felt stronger, smoother, and crisper on nitrous.

This is just a reminder that WON systems require very little troubleshooting with basic systems and problems usually end up being with the engine itself. On the other hand other nitrous systems require troubleshooting starting with the nitrous kit as they are usually the source of problems.

Okay I'm done typing on my phone.

Regards,
Alex

Hi Alex,

Yet another excellent post and I couldn't agree with you more.

I actually gave up attending Drag race events many years ago, because I was always being blamed for EVERY failure that most customers experienced and spent ALL THE TIME I WAS THERE, finding the ACTUAL CAUSE of the failures, which was NEVER anything to do with MY products.

NO other company had a representative at the tracks, so I spent ALL my time doing the work that the suppliers of the FAILED products, should have been doing instead.

Your experience is representative of 99% of 'nitrous' related failures (as ignition components are usually the first to fail) and because the car 'APPEARS' to run 'OK' when the nitrous system is not activated, THE NITROUS SYSTEM ALWAYS GETS THE BLAME - INCORRECTLY.

For your further information, I've only just managed to resolve a similar situation with one of my high end customers.

He switched from a NOS plate to our Spider, Pulsoids and controller, which SHOULD have lead to him running much quicker ET's. However, over the months that followed he was unable to even get close to his previous best times and he was CONVINCED that there was something wrong with MY products.
The first thing I pointed out to him, was that it was almost certainly going to be a problem with his ignition components but he REFUSED to accept that was the case, as he was convinced it was the best available and in perfect working order.
He reluctantly agreed to try changing other items that he'd also changed at the same time he switched to WON (torque convertor & tires, etc.) but they made no difference what-so-ever and as a consequence he became even more convinced that the WON products were at fault.
He was so convinced they were at fault, that he was about to switch back to the NOS GARBAGE but thankfully for him, he accepted my advice to carry out a flow test and when the results PROVED the system was flowing the intended amount, he RELUCTANTLY agreed to replace his entire ignition system with a spare one.

On his first run with the replacement nitrous system it made so much power INSTANTLY that it totally blew away the tires to such an extent, that he thought he'd destroyed his transmission.
After REDUCING the progressive controller settings SUBSTANTIALLY and after a couple of runs, he ran not only a new PB but also a new class record for the track, both of which were a substantial improvement to not only the times he was running before switching the ignition but also far quicker than with the NOS products.

Needless to say he is no longer intending to switch back to the NOS products and is looking forward to using the WON products to their full potential in future.

Such a shame that he's not only wasted the past 6 months but also lead people in his country to think our products are inferior to NOS products but thankfully he should put that all to rights over the next few months.

My issue was an easy find, but with my limited free time I had to change one thing at a time. Otherwise, I would have found the issue within 30 minutes!

Thanks again for your supportive and understanding posts.

It might take longer to change one thing at a time in some cases but;

1) You may find it actually works out being quicker in others, as changing one part at a time is certainly the best way to proceed

2) Changing one part at a time SHOULD lead you to find the CERTAIN cause of the problem, rather than being unsure of what actually fixed it and THAT knowledge alone is worth any extra time it might have taken to find it.

Hopefully, others can use this information to help them find problems faster and easier. The sooner problems are solved, then the sooner nitrous can be enjoyed!