The guy who gave this to me was told this was an early power adder. Does this sound valid or is it BS? Any early power adder experiment stories out there?
nitrogen isn't a power adder. Nitrous oxide is (when combined with more fuel). But if you had this tank and regulator, and you wanted to consider it art and give it a label, "early power adder" would be appropriate. Would fool lots of people.
Reminds me of a guy back in the early 80's in Winnipeg...at cruise nights he would purposefully open his trunk and rummage around to show off his implied "nitrous" set up...it was a freon tank with a couple vacuum pump gauges hanging on the trunk torsion bars. No joke!
If Nitrogen was a power adder, all of our cars would be much more powerful and efficient. 78% of the air is nitrogen and we burn a lot of fuel to move that stuff into and out of an engine's cylinders.
There was the nitrogen in tyres fad, and it is also what is used to give Guiness and some other beers their fine foam head (nothing to do with the beer, it's just the gas used.)
How early? In the original "street systems"...there weren't any companies making anything. You got a bottle, had a dentist fill it for you and then found some solenoids from a Coke machine, rewound them to work on 12V....then figured out an injection system. We used brake lines that we drilled .060 holes in as a spray bar setup ( I forget the size for gas). Drilled a hole (2 actually) and put it right into the plenum of the intake. People never saw us coming
Had a buddy that had a 56 vw bug, he got tired of all the late model import tuner cars showing up at all of the car shows so at one of the shows he went to he put a old manual typewriter in the front seat with cables running from it to the glove box, when people asked he told them it was the first very early experimental "tuner" set ups. I still remember the grin on his face when he told that story. .
No one has ever heard of a compressed air supercharger? Bottle is kind of small, these guys used a scuba tank. Lasts about ten or so seconds. https://www.motortrend.com/news/compressed-air-supercharging/
OK , if nitrous gives your engine more oxygen, why can,t you just run straight oxygen with a regulator to limit the amount going in your carb along with your fuel ???
"why can,t you just run straight oxygen......" Well, you //can// ............... Google "mickey thompson "oxygen" dragster Regrettably, unlike what is shown from time to time on my beloved NCIS, oxygen is not flammable by itself.
One neat thing about nitrous oxide is that the boiling point at storage pressure is pretty well suited to the conditions in a car. You can store it as a liquid/gas under pressure at normal temperature, then introduce it into the engine as a liquid that immediately vaporizes. Oxygen has a boiling point about 100 degrees colder, so it's not so easy to deal with it in liquid form. at least that's my understanding...maybe I'm way off base....
It’s also a space thing I think oxygen takes up a large amount of space , where as nitrous while holding a similar amount of “ power” takes up much less . that’s what I’ve heard anyways . you also get the cooling effect of the nitrous when it goes into the engine for a power adder
Watch this and find out how and why nitrous oxide and not oxygen will work. And definitely not nitrogen, which is inert. Go to 14:25
Several reasons pure O2 isn't a good option: 1. Safety factor if it leaks, O2 can make things explode or burn faster than intended. Oxygen itself doesn't burn, but it's the rapid oxidation of other elements that can be dangerous. 2. Nitrous oxide provides a buffer effect, it takes the pressure and temperatures of engine running to separate the oxygen out. Otherwise it is stable and not a safety issue, beyond being a liquid that is under extreme pressure in the bottle. 3. Nitrous oxide provides some cooling effect in combustion chamber to help save your pistons and rings. Pure oxygen would burn too hot.
Actually air is heated when compressed but comes out very cold when released and that is part of the reason people have made it work. I know pressurized air is not a great way to add HP. It’s a one time shot that is very brief. The added weight of a compressor to refill the tank makes it a poor choice for continuous use. It has been done though. As stated, Mickey Thompson used it and in the article I posted the two engineers were able to get a SBC making 422 HP up to 836 HP with a fairly simple set up. That’s pretty damn impressive. Why didn’t it catch on? Who knows, maybe air tank manufacturers weren’t the greatest sponsors.
Compressed air is what a supercharger does. If you run 7.3 lbs of boost (half of atmospheric pressure 14.6) you have 50% more oxygen to be able to burn 50% more fuel. It also has 50% more nitrogen going along for the ride. Nitrous has about double the oxygen as air (33% vs 18%) so just like supercharger it enables more fuel to be able to burn. Pure oxygen can do the same, just much more difficult to use than nitrous. I never said pure oxygen can't work. Just why it's not a good option. All of the methods are ways to burn more fuel, with subsequent higher power potential.
I agree it is not the best way by a long shot….but ya gotta agree it’s pretty damn cool considering the cost and complexity compared to a blower or supercharger.
Nitrogen displaces oxygen. You could purge with it, Or used in welding with other gases. Power adder? No. Lippy
I was joking about the OP’s set up. Geez- Louise, just saying it’s possible on a bigger scale. Besides who knows what was in that bottle…I’ve used old propane tanks to fill tires after off roading and fire extinguishers to hose off dirt bikes before loading on the trailer.
Barney Navarro tried that and vaporized his Strombergs, the inside of the engine looked like it had been metal sprayed.
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