I've been thinking of power adders for the Mirage lately. If you haven't seen it, the thread on compressed air supercharging is pretty interesting, and not very expensive to make up. I think stuff like a header and intake are great. I would personally love to fabricate my own header for the Mirage, and I'd also love to mess around with intake design. However, the cost per horsepower are pretty high, and the time required to do things correctly is pretty high as well. If you want a significant power increase, turbocharging or supercharging are also a great way to go. But, they cost a lot more. I believe I've found a cheaper way to eek some good power out of the Mirage. If you read the thread title you already know I'm talking about nitrous oxide.
What is nitrous oxide and how does it work? I'm sure a lot of us already kind of know, but here is a good link that describes a nitrous oxide system. I'll quote a snippet for the speed readers:
Alternatively, you can watch a young Engineer Explained video which covers things pretty thoroughly.Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is made up of two nitrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. When heated to around 570 degrees Fahrenheit (gas heats up during compression and, of course, combustion), the chemical bonds holding the oxygen to the nitrogen will break, thus increasing the amount of oxygen present in the combustion chamber. With more oxygen available, you also need to inject more fuel to keep the air-to-fuel ratio optimal, which yields a more powerful explosion, which means more torque to the wheels and thus faster acceleration times. Yay!
So, the system is pretty simple, you got a tank of liquid N2O, some high pressure line, a solenoid and a jet. Doesn't sound too complicated right? Well, it really isn't. That is why nitrous kits start off at around $375. That doesn't seem too bad to me for a big power adder. Granted, that kit probably won't include everything you need, but thats not too bad. You can adjust how much you want to inject to get the right amount of power increase. Sounds great. But, I bet we can DIY for a lot less than $375... This is what I'll be looking into.
I think I'll end it here for now. I know its a short first post, but the next steps really get into it. I will add some additional info soon.
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Quick links:
- Wet vs dry nitrous system
- System overview
- Selecting a tank
- From the valve to the solenoid
- Selecting solenoid valves
- Solenoid to the intake
- Where to inject nitrous
- Modifying the solenoid valve - Part 1
- Modifying the solenoid valve - Part 2
- Making the jets