Since NX are making such false and misleading claims that people 'think' their latest Lightning solenoids are as good and/or close to being the same as our Pulsoids, I thought I'd better post an analysis of their solenoids and their claims to PROVE that the Lightning solenoids are to all intents and purposes THE SAME or WORSE than the generic NX solenoids they are SUPPOSED to be better than.
The following links show the components of their Lightning solenoid to the left and their generic solenoid to the right.
So now lets have a spot the difference contest.
Anyone who can spot more than 1 technical improvement has gone one better than I've managed and anyone who can't find at least 2 detrimental changes should look again.
The ONLY improvements I can see are in APPEARANCE, so once again NX are relying on their customers eyes deceiving their brains to get a sale.
http://www.noswizard.com/hpsnw_admin/pd ... s%20SS.pdf
Here’s the promotional text that NX use for their ally based GENERIC solenoid, that they call the ‘Lightning’ with my comments in yellow;NX Lightning Series Solenoids flow great,
Well its not like NX to be shy of making wildly exaggerated and untrue claims, so why haven’t they claimed that they flow MORE than their previous generic solenoid, might it be because it flows less?weigh less
Anything would weigh less than a lump of stainless steel, so that’s no big achievementand look sexy.
Well that’s a matter of opinion and in our opinion at WON the design is ‘shabby’ rather than 'sexy'.The key to maximizing nitrous horsepower is to keep the nitrous in liquid form until it is injected into the engine.
Now where have I read that being repeated over and over for the past 30 years!?!?!?!?Sharp bends cause nitrous flow to become turbulent which causes gaseous bubbles to form in the nitrous flow.
Seems I’ve read this in the same place for the same period of time but good to know that other nitrous companies have started to learn the fundamentals at last, just a shame that they are ONLY talking the talk and have no idea how to walk the walk.Expansion areas also cause the nitrous to go gaseous.
Well, well, well, has Mike Woods been visiting my forum and learned something at last!?!?!?!? Probably been visiting but rather than learning, he's JUST BEEN COPYING!!!!Liquid nitrous makes more power than gaseous nitrous – Period!
Music to my ears, at last I’m not the only person making such statements, so now maybe people will believe the rest of the advanced technology that I’ve been preaching for over 30 years, because I only seem to be believed when the same info comes from an American source.NX Lightning solenoids feature a raised inlet and a bottom exit which eliminates up to four 90 degree turns and one expansion area in the body of the solenoid.
Seems to me I made this point as well (verifiable numerous times elsewhere on this forum), just after I launched the worlds FIRST end exit nitrous specific solenoid MANY YEARS AGO.The result is more horsepower!
By George they’ve got it, well in THEORY AT LEAST but in actual practice they’re going backwards rather than forwards.Lightning series solenoids are CNC machined from lightweight billet aluminum and topped with carbon fiber cans for the ultimate in weight savings.
At last some truth but what a MISTAKE!!! - I’ll be giving the details of ALL the mistakes at the end. Lightning series nitrous solenoids feature a bypass port which allows you to connect a purge valve directly to the body of the nitrous solenoid.
True but what a mess they made of that. Connecting the purge valve to the body of the nitrous solenoid not only looks cleaner, it ensures that there is no trapped air in the body of the solenoid.
True but you’ll see why they’d have been better without it shortly.Note: We also recommend that you check out the NX Lightning series fuel solenoids. They feature a bypass port which allows you to connect a small bypass/return line to your tank. This eliminates lean spikes caused by trapped air between your fuel pressure regulator and the fuel solenoid.
LOL – well that last statement is so glaringly ridiculous that I’ll start with the last cock up first;
1) So adding a fuel return is going to prevent a lean spike but what about all the other more major causes of the lean spike that they’re doing NOTHING about, like inappropriate metering jet location and large bore long pipes, to name just 2.
2) Sure a purge port is a great idea BUT when you make it as BIG as NX have done, it causes 2 MAJOR detrimental effects;
i) It INCREASES the expansion volume of the solenoid, which STUPIDLY they have just claimed to have reduced by raising the port (so that was well thought out), whilst acknowledging that a smaller volume is better, talk about shooting yourself in the foot!!!!
ii) It dramatically INCREASES turbulence which they’re also acknowledging as being detrimental, yet they’ve failed to appreciate that THEIR purge port as they’ve had it machined, is worse than not having one.
Compare the NX purge port with the WON X-10 purge and you’ll see that ours has the smallest acceptable entry (to MINIMISE turbulence) and the threaded chamber for the adaptor is FULLY FILLED by either the blank or the adaptor fitting to prevent the chamber volume being increased to MINIMISE expansion to gas.
3) In their desperate attempts to compete with the light weight and style of the Pulsoids, NX overlooked 2 issues. One of these issues would have improved reliability and the other issue resulted in the new solenoid performing worse than the original generic solenoid that it replaces;
i) Although they replaced the base/body with ally, they kept the outlet seat in stainless steel and as a consequence the MAIN performance detriment of using stainless steel was RETAINED rather than improved on.
ii) The original mild steel coil case acts as a magnetic amplifier to ensure the plunger lifts as quickly as possible but NX obviously didn’t realise that was the case and all they could see was that they didn’t look too hot. In their ignorance of the technology underlying the design and function of a solenoid they decided to use a carbon fibre case (which has NO magnetic qualities whatsoever), because it was trendy and ‘looked’ good, totally unaware that they’d just discarded a key feature of a solenoid, especially when it’s needed to pulse rapidly.
4) Sure all their comments about reduced turbulence and chamber volume along with maximising the liquid density reaching the engine are ALL TRUE!!!!
HOWEVER – NONE OF THEM APPLY TO THEIR SOLENOID!!!!!
THERE'S ONLY ONE COMPANY THAT OFFERS A SOLENOID THAT DOES WHAT NX CLAIM AND IRONICALLY THAT WON!!!!
I’ve been planning to do a back to back ‘flow’ comparison test between a Pulsoid and a Lightning solenoid for a few months now but never had time. Just as I was about to make time to do it, I realised there was NO POINT.
I also realised there was NO POINT doing a back to back comparison of the components themselves either, because there is NO COMPARISON, that’s any different to comparing a Pulsoid to a ‘generic’ solenoid. I therefore decided it made more sense to do a comparison between the NX Iceman (stainless steel solenoid) and their alloy counterpart (the Lightning solenoid), as that is a REAL COMPARISON as they are VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL, as you can see from the link provided above.