How did nitrous get such a bad rep...?

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TT5.9mag said:
Correct. This was the 8.1 vortec big block Chevy out of my 3500 Dually that was turbocharged and stuck a wastegate.
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See this is where I don't get the nitrous getting this bad rap as anything can happen probably with anything and blow something up. We always got to take in to the consideration of the human ego... Like I think it was you that said it's just too easy to get carried away with nitrous and people usually do...
 
True anything can happen and usually does. You have to have experiences to learn something new. I learned a lot from that engine. It had 372,000 miles on it when I grenaded it. It was turbocharged for about 200,000 of those miles. I still have the truck and it’s my daily driver. Now with 550,000 miles. Still turbocharged and making more power. The thing with nitrous is, it’s almost accepted and expected that if you use it, pistons become a service item. Sure stuff can live a long time on a 100 shot, a 150 shot, even a 200 shot. But get up in the big power levels, really spray it hard and you will use parts, expensive parts, and lots of them. That’s why nitrous gets a bad rep. It deserves it.
 
TT5.9mag said:
True anything can happen and usually does. You have to have experiences to learn something new. I learned a lot from that engine. It had 372,000 miles on it when I grenaded it. It was turbocharged for about 200,000 of those miles. I still have the truck and it’s my daily driver. Now with 550,000 miles. Still turbocharged and making more power. The thing with nitrous is, it’s almost accepted and expected that if you use it, pistons become a service item. Sure stuff can live a long time on a 100 shot, a 150 shot, even a 200 shot. But get up in the big power levels, really spray it hard and you will use parts, expensive parts, and lots of them. That’s why nitrous gets a bad rep. It deserves it.
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Deserves it? Isn't that kind of blaming the gun?...
 
Yes it is. And it’s wrong. But maybe you should have titled the thread “why do nitrous users get a bad rep”.
 
Cos when they go up to 250+ shots they haven't a clue how to run the set up properly....cheap doesn't work at that level.
 
I've never used nitrous. After building an engine and having nothing but problems. If I were to do it over again I would buy up all the cheap small blocks I could find. intake, carb, cam, new rings gapped for the sauce. I like wrenching on junk. Pulling broke motors that I have hardly anything invested in is a lot more enjoyable than ones you care about.

I'm done spending money to build something with new parts to make hp.
Junkyard motors with power adders from here on out.

only issue with nitrous is were to buy it around these parts.
 
Hot Metal said:
Cos when they go up to 250+ shots they haven't a clue how to run the set up properly....cheap doesn't work at that level.
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You said a mouthful right there. Anything over 350 and it's pretty much gotta be right. The most I have personally seen done without big time NOS guys is around 800hp. It made nice power but one simple mistake made a hot mess. I don't see a difference between a Fogger and good headers IMO. They are all power adders.

JW
 
j par said:
Stroking340 aside, I was really looking to see if this was a stigma made by people who are either naive about it scared of it or just basically like most scared of the unknown.... And it does seem to be just about that. With the exception of one person who just felt it got a little expensive doing the refills... But nonetheless tried it and loved it...
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That about sums it up for me.
If i had ANY desire to spray, i would do what you are doing, and learn from others mistakes.

How ever, i like what your son is doing and would love to do it to my ride some day.(never happen! to many greenbacks in one setting)
Blower to kick you pants out of the hole(like the spray) and a turbo to pull you to the finish like. NOW THATS A BROAD POWER BAND:thumbsup::thumbsup:

But not on NO Ricer!!!! it will/would be on a mopar.
 
Well, amongst tuners who figure it out and who first have a good understanding of the basics...

...the rep is all good.

The bad rep is from bad experiences that are 99.9% self induced.
 
dusterdoug said:
Well, amongst tuners who figure it out and who first have a good understanding of the basics...

...the rep is all good.

The bad rep is from bad experiences that are 99.9% self induced.
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I think there's some false information about how cheap it is... This leads people to believe that it's extremely easy...
 
This would be way less than my current nitrous setup..
Screenshot_20200402-220743.png
 
Just added up the costs for my very minimal nitrous installation. If I bought all the stuff from Summit today, it would cost me $940 to set up my car the way I have it right now, as it runs, with an NOS Cheater kit set with factory 250hp jetting. Bottles are shipped empty now, so add whatever the local cost is to fill it these days.
At that amount, for a really basic hillbilly setup, you can see why some guys that spent $10,000 on an engine to run mid 12s get all butt hurt when a rusty piece of **** like mine runs 11.80s with nitrous on a $3,000 engine.

Now, on stuck solenoids "blowing up engines" as people keep saying. How many guys admit they made a tuning error that melted their pistons, regardless if they run nitrous, turbo, supercharger, or naturally aspirated? Very few. They all blame component. Not saying it does not happen, like the one guy here that did have a wastegate failure cause his damage. I had a stuck nitrous solenoid once. What happened? Nothing but loss of power. The nitrous side solenoid failed to open and the system went pig rich on activation, nosing over. No damage. I have seen nistrous backfires in other cars a few times at start up, likely causing by leaking or stuck open nitrous solenoids. At 250hp level it usually just damages the carb butterflies.

Let's say a guy has $30,000 in an engine, not counting nitrous setup expenses. He misses the tune or has a solenoid failures and somehow melts all 8 pistons and spark plugs. I never saw every piston get damaged, but let's say that for now. How much does a new set of pistons and rings, full gaskets, spark plugs, machine shop labor cost to rebuild that engine? Probably not the $10,000 that so many claim to have in parts damage from a stuck solenoid. Even if a really expensive sheet metal tunnel ram intake and two carbs got damage are we just approaching that amazing $10,000 mark, but that is on a really high end setup, and that would often have burst panels in the intake to prevent the intake damage.

As for claims that nitrous is cheating no matter what, like steroids. Why? Why is not cheating to race someone and not tell them all your internal engine modifications and camshaft specs before the race? Why is it not cheating to claim to have a 340 when you are really running a stroker 416, or whatever? Why is not cheating to race someone and not tell them you have really nice professionally ported cylinder heads, instead of unmodified factory castings?

Really this all boils down to "who cares" in the big scheme of things. Some will always like it. Some will always hate it for no real reason, or maybe even for a specific reason. But it is pretty nice to be able to have a REAL mild or near stock, streetable, mid 13 second car, for example, and when you want to run a mid to high 11 second run for the heck of it, just back down the timing, add more octane to the fuel, and turn the kit on. Sounds fun to me.
 
And that about sums it up perfect.....you can also have a petrol solenoid not even working and still not melt things down, lots have done it and not noticed much on a run apart from a lack of power, enough timing out of course and at a high level 300+. Read some of the N20 threads the yellowbullet forums.
I went from 12.4's to 11.01 with only an actual 158hp gain on the motor (F jet too big then). Cheater kits are not 250hp with the biggest jets as solenoid orifice size was/is still today?...only .093", so max is around 195hp. I won money once because I had Nitrous and the other guy didn't...tough!
 
It's called laughing gas for a reason. Used correctly, and you can laugh all the way to the bank. Incorrectly, you'll be the one that gets laughed at, and no one will let you forget it.
 
Hot Metal said:
And that about sums it up perfect.....you can also have a petrol solenoid not even working and still not melt things down, lots have done it and not noticed much on a run apart from a lack of power, enough timing out of course and at a high level 300+. Read some of the N20 threads the yellowbullet forums.
I went from 12.4's to 11.01 with only an actual 158hp gain on the motor (F jet too big then). Cheater kits are not 250hp with the biggest jets as solenoid orifice size was/is still today?...only .093", so max is around 195hp. I won money once because I had Nitrous and the other guy didn't...tough!
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That's why in the 70's we put manual valves on with a 1\4 orifice.
 
Bobzilla said:
Just added up the costs for my very minimal nitrous installation. If I bought all the stuff from Summit today, it would cost me $940 to set up my car the way I have it right now, as it runs, with an NOS Cheater kit set with factory 250hp jetting. Bottles are shipped empty now, so add whatever the local cost is to fill it these days.
At that amount, for a really basic hillbilly setup, you can see why some guys that spent $10,000 on an engine to run mid 12s get all butt hurt when a rusty piece of **** like mine runs 11.80s with nitrous on a $3,000 engine.

Now, on stuck solenoids "blowing up engines" as people keep saying. How many guys admit they made a tuning error that melted their pistons, regardless if they run nitrous, turbo, supercharger, or naturally aspirated? Very few. They all blame component. Not saying it does not happen, like the one guy here that did have a wastegate failure cause his damage. I had a stuck nitrous solenoid once. What happened? Nothing but loss of power. The nitrous side solenoid failed to open and the system went pig rich on activation, nosing over. No damage. I have seen nistrous backfires in other cars a few times at start up, likely causing by leaking or stuck open nitrous solenoids. At 250hp level it usually just damages the carb butterflies.

Let's say a guy has $30,000 in an engine, not counting nitrous setup expenses. He misses the tune or has a solenoid failures and somehow melts all 8 pistons and spark plugs. I never saw every piston get damaged, but let's say that for now. How much does a new set of pistons and rings, full gaskets, spark plugs, machine shop labor cost to rebuild that engine? Probably not the $10,000 that so many claim to have in parts damage from a stuck solenoid. Even if a really expensive sheet metal tunnel ram intake and two carbs got damage are we just approaching that amazing $10,000 mark, but that is on a really high end setup, and that would often have burst panels in the intake to prevent the intake damage.

As for claims that nitrous is cheating no matter what, like steroids. Why? Why is not cheating to race someone and not tell them all your internal engine modifications and camshaft specs before the race? Why is it not cheating to claim to have a 340 when you are really running a stroker 416, or whatever? Why is not cheating to race someone and not tell them you have really nice professionally ported cylinder heads, instead of unmodified factory castings?

Really this all boils down to "who cares" in the big scheme of things. Some will always like it. Some will always hate it for no real reason, or maybe even for a specific reason. But it is pretty nice to be able to have a REAL mild or near stock, streetable, mid 13 second car, for example, and when you want to run a mid to high 11 second run for the heck of it, just back down the timing, add more octane to the fuel, and turn the kit on. Sounds fun to me.
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With the example I gave of a cheap turbo setup (I don't think an expensive blow through carb was included in that) and the example you gave of a nitrous setup cost wise, I would like to address this "myth" that nitrous is one "cheap horsepower" and "easy"... "BULLCRAP!!"
I strongly believe this is why people blow their engines up.. someone don't know nothing about it buys some generic kit and think he's going to set the world on fire... First the generic kit comes with nothing for the fuel side except a fuel solenoid... Not knowing any better just puts a t fitting in his fuel line after the pump (hopefully after the pump and not before LOL) and runs it to the fuel side solenoid... Easy... (Likely improper fuel pressure, no fuel pressure gauge, no low pressure cutoff switch, no filter, definitely running whatever octane gas is in the tank, ECT...)
Most generic kits don't come with a pressure gauge for the nitrous bottle, so who knows what the pressure is???!!..
Most kits only come with a full throttle activation switch which means any time you're at full throttle it activates both solenoids or should... Hopefully this cheap kit comes with an arming switch so you can shut that off...
And the most important thing to keep your motor from blowing up is never addressed in one of these cheap kits..
Timing retard... If you're smart enough to take this into consideration without a timing retard mechanism of some sort you're going to have to adjust your distributor absolutely every time you use nitrous... Or continuously try and drive around with retard timing..
I would say if you're going to do it right A good rule of thumb would be to double at the very least the cost of one of those cheap kits... Long before the bottle is filled... and once you accumulate this cheap kit and all the stuff to make it work right if you think it's just as easy as slapping a bottle in the trunk in my opinion you've lost your marbles....
Did someone mention the price of a Purge kit? LOL...
 
TT5.9mag said:
Once you grenade two or three 10k engines from stuck solenoids you will understand. Turbos for the win!
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Had that happen to me on a stock 340. Didn't blow up the engine but turned my mufflers into pumpkins on restart! Like a nuclear explosion at 3:00 in the morning LOL
 
superchargeddrt said:
Had that happen to me on a stock 340. Didn't blow up the engine but turned my mufflers into pumpkins on restart! Like a nuclear explosion at 3:00 in the morning LOL
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Back on page one we debunked the fact that he did not blow two or three 10K engines, but seen one Chevy blow its engine and he blew his engine from a wastegate not opening..lol...
 
RAT ROD AL said:
Here's my take on nitrous, and this is from street racing back in the late 70s. It was just finding its way into street racing and wasn't as refined as it is today..
I don't think most guys new what to do with it and of course some did. I remember a little Vega wagon in the St. Louis area that was king of the street back then. Mid 12s on motor and low 10s on the bottle. I had a 69 Dart that had a 440 , auto and 488 gears. It ran 12. Os ,no bottle. Never got beat on the street. But from going to the track I new who not to race on the street. Anyway, guys that had nitrous would always lie and say , the bottle was empty or wouldn't use it or some BS. Guys would call me out for a race and crawl all over my car looking for nitrous, and they wouldn't use their's. I would tell them, if you got it you better use it. Non nitrous guys thought of nitrous guys as lying cheaters.
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Yeah they used to have system with a 1 hit bottle they called the "Sneaky Pete". The bottle was small enough to hide under the dash.
 
If you plan to run nitrous you need a cam for it and the timing for it and good fuel if your semi serious. If you're just adding it to a street car a 100 or so shot you shouldn't have to mess with much other than some better fuel. If you're really running a serious nos car how about the price of a racepac set up and 116 fuel. Ya nothing is cheap.
 
superchargeddrt said:
Yeah they used to have system with a 1 hit bottle they called the "Sneaky Pete". The bottle was small enough to hide under the dash.
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yes I'm sure they have all kinds of systems like that also ones that are hidden underneath the intake manifold as well. Personally I like to show off a cool Nitrous system...
 
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