Cooling Effect of Nitrous


Another plus is that nitrous has a cooling effect. Cooler intake air is denser and contain more oxygen atoms per cubic foot. So cooler air will allow more fuel to be burned and in turn make more power. A 10 degrees celsius drop in temperature can add 2% power to an engine.


Unlike our atmosphere, nitrous is injected from a pressurized bottle. And when the pressurized nitrous leaves the bottle it changes from its liquid state to a gas when it's sprayed into the engine. Nitrous oxide boils at -88.5 degrees celcius and it will begin to boil as soon as it is injected, cause the temeprature in this area is much more than -88.5 degrees. During this process it absorbs heat and this process can cause a 40 degrees or so drop in inlet manifold air temperature. Now if we are dealing with say a 400 hp engine, we can see well over 30 hp gained from the cooling effect alone. This cooling effect also helps the engine deal with detonation.




So Why Not Pure Oxygen?

Air has only 20.947% oxygen, the rest is made up largely of nitrogen. The nitrogen has no effect in combustion at all, but it does absorb heat. When you add nitrous oxide, it has 36.35% oxygen with the rest being nitrogen once the heat has broken it down. So the more Nitrous Oxide you add, the less percentage of Nitrogen is available to absorb heat. That is why Nitrous increases engine heat very rapidly.


If we were to add pure oxygen (which has been tried), the percentage of Nitrogen would fall much faster as more Oxygen was added. We would not be able to add much Oxygen before heat was a problem to control. Also compressed Oxygen is in a gaseous form, so adding oxygen takes up more room and reduces normally aspirated power, and the amount of Nitrogen from it. By injecting liquid Nitrous, the normally aspirated power only drops slightly and in some cases it increases and it is adding oxygen and Nitrogen. To put it simply, with nitrous oxide, we can get more Oxygen atoms in the engine and have a lot more Nitrogen as well. Nitrous can make much more power before heat is uncontrollable.




Importance of Keeping the Bottle at Optimum Pressure - Nitrous Bottle Heaters (Bottle Warmers)

Nitrous needs to be between 900 and 1000 PSI in order to achieve the optimum horsepower. While that will not be a problem in hot summer months, low bottle pressures will be a real problem in cold winter months, especially at nights.

Please check below table to see how bottle pressure is effected by the temperature:

If you`ve checked the above table, you may have been noticed that the bottle pressure at 10 deg. temperature is 590 PSI. That`s way too low. All you need is a bottle heater. They are thermostatically controlled, easy to install and totally automatic. All manufacturers tell that a quality bottle heater is essential for proper nitrous system performance.


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