i dont see an issue with using nitrous. if you have a nitrous car your car should be far from slow without spraying it. my 406 is a nitrous motor, and can go well into the 12s on motor alone. i dont think nitrous is making a bigger explosion in your engine since there isnt an explosion in the first place. its an internal combustion engine not an internal explosion engine. it should be burning fuel not blowing it up. forged pistons arent necessary, but are a wise choice if you intend on running nitrous. ive seen numerous cast motors live long lives on the track getting hit with 300 shots, and not exploding. i dont really see the point in having a kit on the car if there is no intention of ever using it. i wouldnt let your friends bad experience keep you from using it. he possibly was running too lean, and/or had too much timing. if all you want is a purge why not just buy a kit? personally i think that would be silly. what could be worse than seeing a car purge, and then crawl down the street, or track? its like being the worlds biggest poser. like having a whistle tip to simulate a turbo.

 

[QUOTE=trewyn15;445674]most of us are all still driving v6's


id rather drive a v6 with alot of power than a EVER use nitros!!

 

Again, depends on the motor, you run a 150 shot on a monte routinely, you'll have an issue

[QUOTE=Mr.Monte;445772]That was a reference to saying our cars have muscle haha

 

 

Then I blow up a $500 and just drop in another one.

I ain't scared

But in all honestly, sometimes people screw up not knowing what they're doing and mess something up. You can blow your engine up adding a cold air intake if you're and idiot. Kind of depends on luck and the user. 150 is nothing to worry about.

 

Nitrous has its uses. If you build for it and a track only car its just like any other power adder. Now for a daily driver, not practical. I would run it at the track just for the cooling it does.

 

well a dry shot is a bad idea at all levels, a wet shot on the other hand can be used safely, assuming the motor can hold that level of power if it were pushing that much in the first place, which a 3.8 s/c is good for, a 150 shot wouldn't be out of the question for use, a 200 with some head studs and exhaust work, but again nitrous is known for being a cheap way to make power, but it does get pricey quick if you use it alot, refills get expensive fast

 

I got way more then $500 in my engine, it would be a huge loss if i blew mine!

I see ur point but I still wouldn't use it.

Its still a cheap way out to make HP my eyes

 

isnt that the point? make more hp as easily and affordably as possible. not everyone wants to throw thousands of dollars at there car, and several more hours of work for similar results. if you ask me all the power adders are a cheap way out to make hp. in most cases its a way to make up for a underpowered, under cubic inched motor. look at stis and evos id be surprised if the turbos themselves dont make more power than the motors theyre strapped to.

all power adders can damage the engine theyre applied to. none are perfect, or danger free, and any serious na car should be making enough power to hurt itself.

 

Honestly, some of the information posted here is very misleading...

As was mentioned, nothing should be 'exploding' in the engine, you should have a spreading flame front generated from the spark plug. If you're having 'explosions' begin outside of this normal flame front, this is a problem and something isn't set up or tuned right.

Also, the hole shown in the piston above likely didn't come from the bigger 'explosion' from nitrous blowing a hole in it. If it did, then it was the installer/user's fault for trying to exceed the designed stress limits of the piston. The same would then have occurred if they would have added any other kind of mods to require the same amount of fuel and put out the same power level (supercharger, turbo, big NA build). Assuming this was the case- the solution is very simple, don't push the engine beyond its design limits. That has nothing to do with nitrous at all.

What is more likely that caused a failure like that with nitrous was a cylinder running lean, knocking, a fuel jet getting plugged up, or a nitrous valve sticking open, etc etc.

Wait, what? This doesn't make any sense. If you don't plan to use it, then why put all of these nitrous parts on? If you're not going to use it, why not install a cam tailored to what you actually plan to run, and sell the nitrous? No sense in lugging around a bunch of parts in the car that you're not even going to use.

You hit the nail on the head as to why many people run it- it can be relatively pretty cheap compared to other power adders, and still leaves you with a very drive-able car. Sure you can add 200 NA HP to a given engine, but the engine is going to have a nasty idle, need a high stall converter, and just be much less driveable. Whereas, with nitrous, you can add the same 200 HP in the form of spray (assuming you're within the design limits of the engine, and keep your AF ratio good on all cylinders and retard timing during spray to account for the change)- and still keep your stock idle, stock driveability, etc.

Is this Nays about nitrous, or nays about modifying a car? I remember when Intense first released their PCMs for the L32's, and a few people chipped the heck out of their pistons because the settings were wrong because it was rushed to market. So a simple, $100 or so mod caused severe engine damage. Same can be said with a pulley change on an L67- super easy to cause major engine damage with a part you can buy used for $30. I've also heard of people spinning bearings after doing a cam swap. They pull the LIM, dump a bunch of coolant into the valley- and forget to flush it out before they start up the engine again. You can cause severe engine damage with just about engine mod- whether that be from part failure, or installer failure.



The point I'm trying to make is that modding an engine in general can cause serious damage- even racing the engine in general can cause damage. GM invested thousands of engineering hours into the powertrain, and making it last (and even then, you still have breakdowns caused by engineering mistakes). When you install parts with very little engineering thought put into them (especially foreign knockoff parts), and have people installing the parts who have relatively little knowledge about what all is affected, and what stresses are involved (not calling anyone stupid, just comparing to all of the engineering data that would go into producing an engine combination at a manufacturer)- then you have a recipe for stuff to fail, up and to the point of engine/powertrain destruction.

That's just part of the game. You want good reliability? Then a good rule of thumb for the average person is to stick with stock parts, stock power level, and don't abuse the engine by racing it. Racing cars has a steep learning curve, and is expensive.


To blame engine destruction on nitrous is silly, if nitrous was such a guaranteed engine destroyer- then why would many pro-drag racing classes use it? (sure they blow up too, but so do the supercharged, and turbocharged cars- its just a fact of life pushing the limits of the engine's parts) Also- why would the German military have used it WW2 on some of their airplanes? If it was such a guaranteed fact that the engines would blow- they certainly would not install it on an engine that could kill those involved if it failed.


That is also definitely off base, and way over generalized. So a 25 hp shot adds 10k miles, as does a 300 hp shot? Also, it doesn't even account for how long you are spraying for- are we talking from 30mph up to the quarter mile, or are we talking spraying for 20-30 seconds on a top speed run?