If you have a specialty car or race car, you may be wondering how to boost your engine’s horsepower for competitive advantage. Today there are a wide variety of performance parts on the market that will increase the peak horsepower of your engine. There is another method, though, that doesn’t require standard hot rodding tricks like changing blocks, pistons, camshafts and other engine hardware. It simply uses a gas called nitrous oxide and this can create an astonishing amount of additional power.
To understand how nitrous oxide works, let’s quickly review how an engine operates. A gasoline engine’s operation depends on three factors: fuel, air and spark. The engine takes in air and fuel and ignites it with the spark. The ignited mixture results in hot, exploding gases that push pistons down their cylinders, turning the crankshaft rapidly and transferring power downstream to the vehicle wheels.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a powerful oxidizer. An oxidizer enhances combustion by supplying additional oxygen to the burning process. The end result is more horsepower being created.
There are two main types of nitrous systems for automotive performance use – wet and dry systems. Wet nitrous systems come with their own fuel hardware which allow you to introduce more fuel to your intake charge and increase horsepower. Dry nitrous systems, on the other hand, don’t come with special hardware and use your existing fuel system. Dry nitrous systems are generally easier to set up between the two simply because you don’t have the added fuel components to install. Most do-it-yourselfers prefer dry systems.
Safety and legality is one concern that should be addressed. Nitrous is not without risk and nitrous systems really aren’t for anything but specialty vehicles. In fact, check your local laws because in some states it is illegal to have nitrous in the vehicle, in others it’s legal with certain rules.
Source: The Used Car People of Arrigo – Ft Pierce, FL
Photo credit : advanceautoparts.com
