Nitrous FAQ

[angels]

im planing on gettin a nitrous kit for my zx3.would i need to tune it when i get the kit? I also have the old diablo chip can i keep that on, or would i have to take it off.what nitrous kit would u recommend.

[Hocky]

No diablo chip, it advances timing. No, you don't really need any kind of tuning for 75 shot or less.

Zex, NX, or NOS are all quality kits. Only get wet, dry is a timebomb.

[PastyPyro]

If I could do it all over I would go with a custom setup but that is just me. In my opinion, nitrous is not worth it without all the goodies. You will HAVE to ditch the chip because you WILL break things because of advanced timing. Maybe later this weekend I'll make a fairly decent write up on all the basic nitrous crap and post it up. I haven't seen a nitrous sticky here yet.

[angels]

thanxs for the info guys.my mods are fs race header,fc throttle, fc short intake,and fs complete exhaust.do u recomend any more mods for a nitrous setup. i want safe setup.thanxs

[PastyPyro]

[Edit: v0.2]

Nitrous is a very safe, effective power adder just like boost but it is only on when you need and you could work on your setup without affecting anything else on the car. It is cheap for a basic setup, but in my opinion it is not worth it unless you have all the safeguards and accessories. Nitrous Oxide splits apart in the cylinder making more oxygen gas available to mix with more fuel, therefore making more power.

Wet Kit – This type of system adds fuel and nitrous in before the throttle body and after the mass air meter on the Focus. It lets you precisely meter the fuel and nitrous allowing you to control the fuel / nitrous ratio with restrictors on the injection nozzle called pills or jets.

Dry Kit – This type of kit if a big no-no on the Focus because our fuel system cannot compensate well. It relies on your mass air meter or other electronic sensors to have your injectors compensate for the fuel needed. Remember, nitrous is not some magic fuel. It only helps you BURN more gas, after all that is where your power comes from. It will work with a small shot (35 shot maybe?) but I wouldn’t waste time experimenting with it.

A 35 shot is ideally equivalent to a 35 horsepower gain from the nitrous. The actual gain with the generic pills or jets will vary because of different fuel and nitrous pressures.


Nitrous is injected into your intake tract in a similar way that fuel is. You have two solenoids (assuming you are using a wet kit) that control when fuel and nitrous enter your engine. They are electronically operated valves that are switched on and off by your activation circuit. The fuel solenoid takes pressurized fuel from either the fuel rail or a T fitting right before the fuel rail. The nitrous solenoid is connected to your nitrous bottle.

Bells & Whistles:

Purge – This is another solenoid that is used to clear your nitrous line of all air and other contaminates. It shoots a nice spray out from somewhere on your car and allows you to get the full, immediate effect of the shot of nitrous.

Bottle Warmer – A bottle warmer wraps around your nitrous bottle to heat it to help maintain a constant, optimum bottle pressure which will give you the best power.

Remote Bottle Opener – This allows you to open and close the valve on the bottle with a switch mounted in the driver’s reach. This is very handy in case of a solenoid failure and could possibly save an engine.

Blowdown Tube – If your bottle pressure becomes too high by over filling or over heating, the bottle’s safety valve will pop and instead of leaking nitrous into the car, it will be guided out into the atmosphere through the tube.

Window Switch – A window switch monitors engine RPM and can open and close a circuit based on an RPM window. For example, MSD’s programmable window switch is under $100 and will allow you to activate your nitrous from a preset RPM range.

Wide Open Throttle Switch – A wide open throttle device turns your nitrous on only at wide open throttle either by mounting a small physical switch on the throttle body or with Zex’s system that “learns” your throttle position sensor voltage at wide open throttle. Your nitrous will only come on when the pedal is to the floor and can be combined with a window switch for flip it and forget it spraying.

Fuel Pressure Cutoff Switch – This is a device that will open a circuit if fuel pressure drops below a certain preset value. The Zex nitrous management unit contains one of these built in.

Direct Port – This system utilizes injection nozzles directly into the intake runner. This allows a tunable, optimized mixture on a per cylinder basis. This also helps to flow large shots of nitrous much better. A log style manifold is required for this.

Progressive Control – A progressive controller pulses the current to the solenoids turning them and off very quickly allowing you to throttle in your nitrous relative to RPMs.


Useful Gauges:

Electric Nitrous Pressure – The sensor for the gauge is placed as close to the nitrous solenoid as possible. It shows the nitrous pressure in the line (as opposed to at the bottle as with most gauges) at the solenoid. Ideal nitrous pressure is 1050 PSI or so, the point at where nitrous oxide gas is in a liquid form (Also known as critical pressure).

Electric Fuel Pressure – This shows the fuel pressure at the nitrous solenoid. It is used to calculate jet sizes. Nitrous and fuel jet sizing is a function of nitrous and fuel pressures at the solenoid.

Air Fuel Ratio or Wideband O2 (A/F) – This shows how rich or lean your air to fuel ratio is. The ideal range is in the mid 12:1s while spraying, while 14.7 is a perfectly balanced air to fuel ratio. Rich is usually safe, utilizing fuel as a primitive coolant while lean will yield too much hot oxygen into the cylinder which can burn valves or cause detonation.

Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) – Exhaust Gas Temperatures can be used to tune an engine overall, but are a sign of a good balance between spark timing and air to fuel ratio.

Oil Pressure – Low oil pressure is the first sign of seals (piston rings, head gasket, etc) wearing on your engine.



Reminders:

DO NOT use an off the shelf chip with nitrous, those advance timing, and that’s bad because it will spark before the intake valve is closed and could cause a nitrous backfire into the intake manifold or detonation.

DO NOT spray too low of an RPM because nitrous and fuel will not flow through your intake manifold well enough and can puddle and ignite.

DO NOT spray when you hit the rev limiter. This cuts off your engines fuel injectors and you are instantly very lean which will cause detonation. The best way to prevent this is by using a window switch.

DO be sure to make sure all your nitrous and fuel lines are free of leaks. Fuel leaks could cause an under the hood fire.

DO be sure to use colder spark plugs. For the Focus the part number is: Motorcraft AZFS 22C F4.

DO be sure that your nitrous nozzle (point of injection into the intake tract) is placed correctly. Your nozzle must be perpendicular to throttle body and allow the nitrous and fuel to mix before reaching the intake port.

[dynomyke]

WOW! That's helpfull. Thanx

[dailyzx3]

Of the 3 Hockey mentioned, NX should be the only choice for those wanting max HP. NX kits are rated at the wheels while NOS & zex (<-- ricer kit!) are rated at the flywheel. Meaning NX is more true to its ratings and will give you the better bang for the buck.

[Hocky]

How can you call zex a ricer kit? Because it is a cleaner package and has an easier installation? The only thing that NX has going for it is that it has slightly larger solenoids than the other companies. I have used NOS, Zex, and NX.... I prefer zex for cleanliness of installation. I would put a properly set up zex kit against a properly set up NX kit, even on OEM jetting, every day of the week. In the end, the difference, either for or against Zex, would be too small to matter. Nitrous is nitrous. If you're running good pressure and proper jetting, you will make the power no matter which kit you're injecting it with. They all use similarly effective nozzles, so pick what you like.

daily: how much power does your mustang make? I had a 383 nova that did 449whp off the bottle, 350 shot on top of that... though it was never dyno'd on the bottle.

[dailyzx3]

How can you call zex a ricer kit? Because it is a cleaner package and has an easier installation? The only thing that NX has going for it is that it has slightly larger solenoids than the other companies. I have used NOS, Zex, and NX.... I prefer zex for cleanliness of installation. I would put a properly set up zex kit against a properly set up NX kit, even on OEM jetting, every day of the week. In the end, the difference, either for or against Zex, would be too small to matter. Nitrous is nitrous. If you're running good pressure and proper jetting, you will make the power no matter which kit you're injecting it with. They all use similarly effective nozzles, so pick what you like.

I call it a ricer kit for many reasons; for one it won't put down the HP it's suppose to, second the nitrous mangament unit is garbage; have you ever seen one taken apart? It's a cheap industrial gas solenoid in a purple case & restrictive at that. They use barb connection for fuel connection on the thing Third, they use poor quality components that are overpriced and who wants/needs a solenoid to go bad?
A 125 zex kit will not put down 125hp A NX or Nitrous Works kit WILL put down 150+hp for their 150 jets, making it a better choice. The NX 100 shot puts down more HP than the zex 125 shot .
What do you mean by properly set up? Using the same size jets or using the guidlines w/the insturction manual?

daily: how much power does your mustang make? I had a 383 nova that did 449whp off the bottle, 350 shot on top of that... though it was never dyno'd on the bottle.

I don't know how much power it puts down, it's not a dyno queen it just hauls ass Good for low 11's@ 120+ off the bottle and on the bottle... I'm not saying.

[PastyPyro]

Your power with the same jets will vary with the fuel and nitrous pressure provided to them. Therefore, results with any kit will vary from car to car. I am curious as to what you are basing your judgements off of here.

The ZEX NMU doesn't contain the best solenoids on the market, but it does have the best wide open throttle activation system. In my opinion, Highpower Systems makes the best solenoids. They call them pulsoids and they can take the abuse of being switched on and off like fuel injectors to throttle in nitrous.

[Hocky]

With the same fuel pressure, nitrous pressure, and jets, the NX and Zex kits will both make very close to the same power... I would put money on it.

I'd agree the solenoids are not as good as NX, but I have NEVER seen or heard of one failing and they get the job done. Zex is not a bad kit and spraying such a small amount like on the focus, I would take one every day of the week. Put it to a 300 shot and I wouldn't, but that is not what we're dealing with.

[PastyPyro]

Zex systems are designed with returnless fuel injected systems in mind. NX does cater towards the carb crowd.

[dailyzx3]

Your power with the same jets will vary with the fuel and nitrous pressure provided to them. Therefore, results with any kit will vary from car to car. I am curious as to what you are basing your judgements off of here.

Of course power will vary according to more variables other than jet sizes, but if you have to use a 125 shot to keep up w/the NX 100 shot then you're already behind the ball. If you're in a race class that only allows XXX amount of nitruos then you lose before you begin. I am basing this not on judgement, but rather dyno pulls/track/street races I have observed and participated in. I stated 3 reasons zex is crap and jets are only one reason.

The ZEX NMU doesn't contain the best solenoids on the market, but it does have the best wide open throttle activation system.

W/that statement you obviously agree w/me. Who wants known faulty solenoids in their car? I don't know about the WOT activation system; a microswitch works great for me, as does an MSD window switch. I'd pass on their system and use one of the other WOT switches.

[BewstAdd1ct]

who cares where they rate it. like was stated above, with equal variables, like jet size, f/p and N20 press.

isnt that how track officials ck the setting. a given flow rate = a theoretical power output.

or do they say "hey... what shot you got in here?"

"300... i brought the box that the kit came in"

[edingeek]

ok, my question... i plan on putting in the NX kit (from steeda.com) stage 2 100shot on my SVT focus... is it better to get a pro to install?? and if so, how much would it run me? i plan on buying the steeda fuel rail, NX kit, NX stage 2 add on, CM stage 3 clutch and clum flywheel.... how much do you think it'd cost to get the fuel rail put in, NX kit, clutch and flywheel all at one time? thanks!

[svtchris]

????

[Chivalry]

What's the biggest wet shot that would safely be recomended? 100? 125?

[Hocky]

I ran 100 on the stock bottom end zx3 with a bit richer fuel side, though that is probably not recommended. Typically the highest people go stock is 75.

[Hocky]

http://www.focaljet.com/ubbthreads/showf...ge=0#2416594184

^ more nitrous discussion

[2Focused4Life]

wow...great stuff...you guys are great....although now I don't want nitrious...lol

[2000SPIFoci]

im interested, someone said that dry n2o is like a time bomb on a focus..... i would like to know why since wet systems are known to puddle up in the intake manifold?

[Hocky]

im interested, someone said that dry n2o is like a time bomb on a focus..... i would like to know why since wet systems are known to puddle up in the intake manifold?

You will outflow the injectors very easily with a dry kit (that is assuming that the kit actually causes the injectors to dump more/enough fuel in the first place).

Puddling in the intake manifold is not really a problem when the nitrous is used properly.

[2000SPIFoci]

ok cause i got a guy thathas it in 4 of his cars right now and he is giving me info on it before i put it in.... but wet is the way to go?

[faultlessfocus]

It will puddle easily if you hit it before a higher rpm (like 4k or so).

[dr_sebaz]

I'm not trying to jack the thread or anything, but this discussion kind of has me worried. I've recently acquired [read, got a really good deal on it] a zex dry kit (with box that enriches the fuel etc.) And I had planned to run a 35 shot on it. My mods to date are CM1 clutch, CM flywheel, copper motorcraft plugs, 180* thermostat, AEM CAI, and FC ORP... I thought that a 35 shot would be safe, but is it going to cause a problem? Should I just get rid of the kit and scrap the whole idea?