Should you Modify with Nitrous Oxide?

This article is a basic introduction to using nitrous oxide in your car. Next to an engine swap or a turbocharger, nitrous is the most wanted mod for most tuners. Like turbocharging, nitrous too, represents simple raw power. With this power comes attention, respect, and covetousness, or in other words, you will be envied.

You have a plan to get a nitrous setup when you can afford it. However, the thing that you need to ask yourself is what should you know about them before you get one? So you go to the nearest speed shop to ask this question and get bombarded with all the big A nitrous kits that you can order for your car. They tell you that it is ok if you just want to get the nitrous kit without upgrading anything else.

Of course you would like to be able to do all of the additional upgrades, but because that nitrous kit is so expensive, who can afford anything else? The labor for getting it installed is a killer, too.

You go to your local shade tree mechanic and the only thing he knows about it is that his dentist used it on him when he was a boy. He reassures you that he's been working on cars for years, mostly domestics from the 1950s-1980s,
though. You hand him your empty Miller can and thank him for his time.

You go online to sites that sell nitrous oxide kits and again get bombarded with why their products are the best. They show you charts with strange numbers and curves. They use language that Vin Diesel himself could not understand.

The sad thing is...you still don't know jack about a nitrous oxide setup.

Even if you have never even seen 'The Fast and the Furious,' you KNOW that nitrous makes your car go faster. Before you put down a dime, there are some things you need to know about it.

How does nitrous oxide work? To understood the answer to the question, you need to get familiar with what happens in your car's combustion chamber.

Benefits of Engine Tuning with Nitrous Oxide

How does nitrous fit into this equation?

Nitrous is injected into your intake manifold. The intake manifold is a part of your engine that provides the mixture of fuel and air for your cylinders. Nitrous come in liquid form. It turns into a gas in your hot intake manifold. This evaporation cause your intake air to cool significantly.

Why is this a good thing?

As you remember from science class, when air is under pressure, it heats up and expands. So, if the air in your combustion chamber gets too hot and ignites the fuel before your sparkplug does, knocking can occur. Also, if the air expands, this means that less air will fit into the cylinders.

The ideal situation would be to have this air to be much cooler than the several hundred degrees that is often created in your engine. You also remember from science class that when air is cooled, it contracts, or is more dense. This means that more air will fit in the combustion chamber, thus creating more horsepower boost.

Negatives about Nitrous Oxide

One of the main concerns about a nitrous setup this that it can produce enough power to damage your engine. Power gains of 100%-300% are achievable! For this reason you should be aware of how much you are reaching and reinforce your engine accordingly. The depletion of the nitrous bottle can go fairly quickly, therefore, make sure to use it sparingly. You need to also think about the actual weight of your nitrous setup.

What IS a Nitrous Oxide?

Nitrous oxide is also called dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide. As you remember from science class, nitrous has the chemical formula N2O. Please do NOT get this confused with nitric oxide or nitrogen dioxide. Nitric oxide has a chemical formula (NO). Nitric oxide is very unstable and reacts with oxygen and makes nitrogen dioxide which is POISONOUS. Nitrogen dioxide has a chemical formula (NO2).

Often, an O2 sensor is used to help regulate fuel/air mixture. There are also additional ways to increase your car's horsepower.

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