I have ordered the C55 and am trying to research what is out there to increase hp. My question is why do most think nitrous is so bad for the engine? I am thinking about using it with either the 75hp or 100 hp wet boost. It seems to me that since nitrous is only used on demand compared to s/c that is a constant, the nitrous would do less in harming the engine compared to a s/c. Any constructive input on this would be greatly appreciated

 

dunno...isnt nitrous a lot cheaper too? well to install at least; not really sure how much the bottles would run you

 

i'd suggest raising the "nitrous pros and cons" discussion at a Honda/Acura board, as nitrous seems especially popular among the import racing set. they'll probably tell you more than you ever wanted to hear about it.

 

It's a comsumable.

If I get a turbo, I can play with it raping my friends all day long.
If I get nitrous, I can only do so much until I have to go home.

 

Nitrous is very fun and I thought about putting a system in my E55 but I have learned from my friend who had a stage II in his Vette. In theroy nitrous seems simple, "just hit a button and go", but there is a lot of preperation before hitting the button. Some of the draw backs are; you need a bottle warmer, bottle opener to prevent leaks, gauges, a local place to buy the $20-$30 refills, space in the trunk because the bottle has to be at an angle. Another reason is that nitrous is very hard on the cars CATS, and at $4000 per side to replace, I'm not sure if it is worth it. Everyone I know that has started with a nitrous system has landed up with a turbo or supercharger system.
just my two cents
Mario

 

Only babies are bottle fed.

 

Mario, thanks for the reply. I was not aware about the CATS getting damaged by nitrous, will have to research that. Do you by chance know what hp shot your friend was using? The set-up I am thinking about getting would be used very little, like about once or twice a month at most. This is why I am thinking about the nitrous. I think the whole set-up for nitrous should be around $1200 to $1400. That would include all you have mentioned plus some safety cut-offs if the fuel supply is not enough. Now if I lived out west, the turbo or s/c would be the only way to go!
Thanks again for the constructive input,Bob

 

I've been thinking about the possibility of the nitrous route as well. I have a good friend who has years of street experience with it and he loves it. The big draw for me is that you aren't taxing your engine, driveline and fuel economy all the time like any other performance upgrade. It is an on demand performance boost. The low cost is also appealing when compared to a Kleemann SC for $12,000.

 

For you situation it might be worth while. Nitrous it great for 1/4 mile testing and racing when you are prepared for it, but if you want instant hp, then nitrous may not be for you. Before you hit the big red button you need to make sure you have enough pressure in the bottle, the bottle is warm, the bottle is open and you purge it, then you can race.
Nirtrous is a great product if you know what you are buying.
Good luck
Mario

 

that is exactly why I am thinking about using nitruos H-Man. Have you given it any real thought as to how much of a hp shot you would use, that would not do any damage or would need any beefing up of the engine? From what I have read, it seems 100hp is a safe shot if using the wet system. Would like to hear any thoughts you have on it.

 

I think a 75 or 100 shot should be fine in a wet system as long as you have a few safetys. One good thing is MB's have very good "knock" sensors. Also make sure you do an air/fuel dyno before and after. It is very important to tune the car with nitrous before you take it into the real world.
Mario

 

Good point Mario, after doing more research, I'm thinking a 50 or 75 shot might be better due to the compression being 11.0:1. any thoughts on this?

 

I used to run nitrous all the time on my stangs, but like was said bout a year's play with that and endless bottle fills and re-tuning for track and street use on the bottle, i ultimatlely went to a supercharger. I'd say though 50-75 hp shot is a good starting range. The biggest thing with nitrous is making sure that fuel is there, if not, ka-boomy. Def need a bottle heater and pressure guage along with safety blow-off tube and to be safe hobbs safety switch for the fuel side. And to be consistent, a purge solenoid is also useful.

 

I run NX wet Stg II right now and I reccomend running 2 steps colder plugs, ignition upgrades, WideOpenThrottle switch, RPM window switch, Remote bottle opener, bottle heater (wire it to 12v source so it doesnt fry the batt), purge, blow down tube, and a fuel pressure regulator switch!

If you get a dry kit, thats where you have to start worrying about fuel delivery because of how they use the injectors to spray the nitrous and mix into the fuel.

With the wet kit you just mount the nozzle about 3-5inches away from the throttle body and thats about it on how it delivers the power!

I run a 75shot daily and occasionally i'll jump to 100 just to have fun! Tuning isn't usually needed that much on V8 equipped vehicles because the engine can take more than a 4cyl! Also to clear things up im running the NX on my daily driver (Chevy cavalier, great on gas!) and I took every precaution to ensure that when I sprayed it would be as safe as possible! But a v8 could deffinately take a 100shot and be happy with it no problems! We have a guy at our shop running a 200shot on his M3 without internal modification at all! Just timing modifications such as retarding it by 2 degrees each 50-75shot he goes up!

Info on the accesories I listed(significance)!

Colder plugs: a colder spark obviously delivers a better current through the system and prevents the car from leaning out and fouling a plug, which leads to a blown engine

Ignition: same as plug situation

WOT switch: nitrous is only good at wide open throttle so to ensure you're not spraying and waisting your nitrous rig this switch onto the throttle body and let the kit activate itself at the right time

RPM Window Switch: Don't know how bad of an issue traction is with ample an ample dose of power on the benz but with the cavalier this switch allows me to program at which RPM do I want it to engage and how much nitrous do I want to spray in that gear! If I launch at Wide open throttle in 1st and sometimes into 2nd i'll just spin (especially when on 75 and 100), so this regulates how much you want and when you want it through the rpm band

Remote Bottle Opener: Prevents you from having to run to the trunk or where ever you have your bottle(s) hidden to open them up and brings the control to any activation switch mounted in a position easily accesible near the drivers seat

Bottle heater: Nitrous is at its best state at around 700-900psi and needs to get warmed up to get to that pressure

Purge: Clears any air within the nitrous lines to ensure full pressure within the lines(sometimes used by ricers to show off)

Blow down tube: Not sure what its for, but installed it because it was regulation in order to race at the local track!

Fuel pressure regulator switch: When you spray and your fuel pressure is not at the vehicles stock levels, you could be spraying too much nitrous into your engine (boom) or too much fuel into your engine (engine stall and sputtering from running rich), depending on whether theres more fuel coming in or not enough!

Well hope this helped! Im on AIM if you have any questions and Im sure you can get a nitrous kit for well under $1000, unless you have a specific brand you want that's overly expensive!

 

Bro to clear a few things up for ya. You can run the standard plug with nitrous, only if you are having detonation problems would you need to really step down a heat range or two. Colder plugs don't deliver a better current, all a colder plug is from a standard plug is it has alot more ceramic touching the electrode which keeps the plug much cooler and in turn will reduce the chances of pre-ignition or commonly known as detonation which is very bad. Also, the blow-down tube is nothing more than a tube that attaches to the other side of the nitrous valve to vent the nitrous outside the car incase the bottle reaches pressures in excess of 1300-1500 psi. If you've ever seen the aftermath of a nitrous bottle that has been left in a car and no pressure relief valve and blow-down tube, hehe, you know how deadly excessive bottle pressure can be.

 

Call Nitrous Express in Wichita Falls, TX. They'll tell you exactly what to do.

 

WOT switch.... I have a question about this!!! My C32 doesnt have a drive by wire throttle body... its an electronic throttle body.. how would I go about to rig a WOT switch to this? Also, when the car shifts gears and im on WOT, while spraying, how will this effect the car during the gear change?

 

Just want to say thanks to all for the replys and help on this. I only have one more concern in using nitrous, I live in Florida where inside car temp. can get up like to 190 degrees and higher when parked out in the sun. Will a nitrous bottle still be ok at these temp.? I like everything else that I have learned about nitrous from everyone. This is my last concern before going ahead.

Bob

 

Where in florida are you? I'm in Orlando...if you're near, I'd love to see whatever you go with!

 

Yea bro, very high inside temps will def pose a problem as the bottle will heat up very rapidly and cause a big spike in bottle presssure. That's why i never left my bottle in my cars in the summer.

 

I put it on my '99 CLK320. Mainly because V6 power is lacking and there really aren't any good power mods for this engine that are worth the money.
I didn't buy a kit, just the parts I needed from ebay and Summit racing.
It's jetted it to make about 100HP. It doesn't feel like 100 at all, but it's hard to tell by just "feel". I do not believe my jetting is correct either, it's very hard to jet when the bottle pressure changes constantly, and I'd rather be too rich than to lean. A bottle heater is not an option for me at all.

I think I paid about $350 altogether, plus like $5 per pound for nitrous.
Oh, and later I bought a remote bottle opener for $180 made by Zex. It sucks, but still better than trying to access the bottle that's mounted in the spare tire well with junk in the trunk.
Stock original plugs, stock everything except a K&N filter.
It's activated by throttle via a teeny switch.
Nitrous really helps this car off the line, before it was real soggy like every EFI car I've driven. Now it burns rubber and takes off pretty good. Engagement at higher speed, say 120, and I can hardly tell if it's on or not. I don't have an answer as to why.
Write me if you have any more questions about what I did.

 

Wow, that seems pretty good. Do you still have it on the car?

 

Chevota,

A couple of questions if I may...

Are you spraying wet or dry?
Any before & after dyno readings?
You mentioned using Zex's remote bottle opener, any particular reason why it "sucks"? Are you also using their nitrous management unit?

Thanks
R.

 

midget fidger:
Who me? Yes, it's still on there.

Richard023:
Wet. I guess the engine can't do dry, which is fine because when I found out how dry is done I was shocked. Thanks, but no thanks.

No dyno, too much $$. I do have a G-Tech accelerometer, it has a HP function I guess I could try.

The Zex opener sometimes doesn't open the bottle. Not a huge deal because you can purge to see if you're on. The real bummer is that it gets stuck open if you let it open all the way. Later, you think you turned it off, but it's on and most likely leaking away. The trick is to hold the purge button down while you open the bottle, and stop as soon as you see/hear flow. This way it remains loose and easy to close.
I called Zex, there is no fix for it.
It's not the valve either, I have two nitrous bottles and a dozen other compressed gas bottles, that's just the way they are.

I had originally thought of rigging some 1/4" drive extensions and wobble dealies to the tank. Have it pass under the rear seat to a removable knob or something. Anyway, if I knew then what I know now I would've done that instead.

 

Chevota,

Thanks for your response. I've seen both wet and dry systems done on the MBs, one particular buddy of mine is running 175 dry shot on his ML55, which I think is a bit overkill, but he has had no issues what-so-ever. I plan to run a NX wet kit (N31/F18) and generally these systems are calibrated to ensure the proper air/fuel ratio making them safe and help avoid the dreaded lean condition. Who did your install and where is the fogger nozzle plumbed at? I understand dyno tuning can get costly, but a 100 shot (N52/F33) on a 320...are you not concern running such a large shot, you're creating a ton of pressure within the cylinders, and it's not unheard of to blow out the spark. Did you go colder & drop the spark plug gap?

I've seen the Zex bottle opener, it's garbage! Go with NX, NOS or TNT opener they're more reliable. You stated that "it doesn't feel like a 100 at all", check your jet settings and of course your bottle pressure, I've ran N20 on my previous vehicles and the misconception is you get throw back to your seat, this pertains only on race shots, otherwise it's a more linear feeling!

Thanks for your feedback, nice to hear N20 guys chime in with their experiences