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Motoring Made Simple -- S. MURALIDHAR
What is Nitrous or NOS?
Fast and the Furious was a popular movie amongst car buffs. No wonder they have made two sequels already. Many of us who watched the first movie of this trilogy (the third is yet to be released in India) will remember the cars, the speed and the Nitrous Oxide performance boosters. Ha ha hah...
But, was all of that just filmy hype or can Nitrous Oxide really be used in all our cars? Before you laugh off this gas as a lot of hot air, may we point out that this is one re-tuning, performance booster that actually works and is used all the time in drag racing and illegal street racing (like the ones in the movie) around the world.
`Nitrous' or Nitrous Oxide, also called Laughing Gas, is denser than air. Compared to regular air that goes into the engine intake, which has an oxygen content of about 21 to 22 per cent, Nitrous Oxide's oxygen content is about 35 to 36 per cent. But, this gas' ability to offer a richer mix during the engine combustion cycle is not the only reason for its popularity.
Unlike it's much vilified cousin, Nitrogen Oxide (a poisonous exhaust gas), Nitrous Oxide when injected in its purest form into an engine capable of handling it, can boost performance by anywhere between 20 to 45 per cent. Nitrous Oxide Systems are usually add-on, bolt-on kits that will enable your car to get a big boost in performance for a short duration only. To run a whole race on just Nitrous will mean carrying a truckload of it in the car.
How does it work?
Nitrous Oxide, in liquid form, is stored under high pressure in cylinders and can be released on demand by the driver at the press of a button. Liquid Nitrous boils at very low temperatures and so, as it leaves the cylinder and enters the engine's air intake, two things happen.
First, the process of conversion into Nitrous gas leads to a drop in temperature at the intake level, leading to the regular air intake also becoming denser and more oxygen rich. Later, as the Nitrous enters the engine cylinder during the intake stroke and continues to boil, the drop in cylinder temperature will also lead to fall a in pressure during the compression stroke, thereby cutting down power loss, which is otherwise a usual feature in this stage.
As the combustion cycle progresses, at high temperatures, Nitrous Oxide breaks up into its individual elements - Nitrogen and Oxygen. With almost two times the usual amount of air (by weight) in the engine, the boost to the power stroke comes from the richer mix of both fuel (injection of which is increased by the car's on-board computer to match the jump in flow of oxygen-rich air) and intake air.
Is it right for you?
Nitrous kits are quite literally bolt-on type. But not all engines will be capable of handling the dramatic increase in cylinder pressures. Stock engines with programmable injection for automatically matching fuel and air flow and the right kind of Nitrous kit that will not exceed the engine's pressure handling capability are points to be considered before installation. Nitrous Oxide is only for extreme performance freaks that don't mind spending top dollar for that shot of adrenaline. Engine damage in the long term may be a possibility with extended use of Nitrous Oxide.
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