31 Our Nitrous Oxide Systems!

Our Nitrous Oxide system installs tend to be somewhat different than most other performance shops and individuals might recommend. We’ve learned over the years that when it comes to performance enthusiast, that in many cases NOS has become feared, or known for possibly causing extensive engine damage at some point. Here at Alternative Auto we’ve learned exactly the opposite when it’s done correctly, and in moderation.

By correctly working with-in certain boundaries in a given NOS application. And by boundaries we mean things like: what the engine has for “type of piston”, and most importantly its compression and what octane the consumer will be using (93 octane 98% of the time). The key thing that needs to be understood about NOS is that it’s a combustion enhancer, and whenever NOS is sprayed into a motor, an appropriate amount of fuel needs to be added accordingly. And ignition timing needs to be retarded as well. The amount of ignition timing to be pulled is somewhat arguable to some folks. Most people follow a rules that for every 50hp of NOS you shoot into a motor – that you should pull 1 to 2 degrees of timing. We’ve found this to only be true in very mild applications where you’ve got a relatively low compression motor with only maybe a 100hp shot of NOS being squirted into the motor.

What has to be understood is that every car that we install NOS onto has also got a custom tune of some sort performed on the car too (usually by us of course). And with this custom tune — usually comes with one of the most common adjustments we make; we get more aggressive with ignition timing (along with hundreds of other tuning tweaks) to make the car and motor more responsive, and to take better advantage of available higher octane fuels. Because we do get more aggressive with the ignition timing above the stock curve in our custom tunes; as a result in all cases, we have to pull more timing then some people would agree with in our NOS applications. Of course only when the NOS is actually begin sprayed into the motor.

Nitrous has a way of adding a tremendous amount of low end TQ and midrange in every application. That’s what makes it so fun, and so much bang for the buck. But in a lot of street cars, it can add to much TQ down low. So in all of our NOS installs in one way or another we find a way to make the system pull ignition timing only when the driver is actually “spraying” the car. The reason we do this is because sometimes even a simple 100hp shot of NOS will add as much as 150ft lbs of TQ or more, instantly on many V-8s. This can cause major traction problems, and just too much of a TQ shock to some motors.

So within our installation process we will add an ignition retard device, or find whatever way we can to set up the car so that only when the driver shoots the NOS – some sort of a automatic ignition timing reduction is applied. Most of the time it can simply be done with an add-on device from companies like MSD who offer electronic boxes that are simply added to the ignition system, and will pull timing only when the driver either arms the system, or pulls timing only when the NOS is actually triggered and flowing into the engine.

Pulling timing on newer late model distributer-less vehicles is a bit more challenging and requires some unique installation process to get the timing reduction to happen the instant NOS is flowing.

By carefully verifying that the Air Fuel ratio’s are where they belong when we tune NOS cars, and by applying what we think is the right amount of ignition timing reduction…. We’ve been able to turn loose a ton of NOS installs that have had no engine failures what so ever in the last several years. NOS is   a cheap and great power adder, and with proper installs and tuning can be a lot of fun.