The DRAGon

Great day out at Port Road Drags, Looking forward to next years one.

NZ Drag & Drive Event at Masterton Motorplex International Dragstrip This weekend, check out the post on the NZ Drag & Drive page as we managed to win it

There’s been steady progress on the car since our last event. It was fast but not fast enough compared to some of the amazing cars there. Nitrous oxide now installed along with a number of electrical devices. In case you don’t know, an engine without a turbo/supercharger or nitrous is called N/A or naturally aspirated. It’s very hard to get big power from a N/A engine. Think of opening the front door to let people in but they are reluctant to step inside (in this case, inside the engine). A power adder pushes air into the engine (in the case of a turbo or supercharger) and nitrous oxide is a type of power adder that puts a more concentrated oxygen brew into the engine. This works much the same as cramming more air in there with a turbo. Nitrous was popular back in the 80s before turbos became cheaper. Now it’s an unusual option but it’s sure been fun installing it.

It’s not like Fast snd Furious where I push a red button in anger. It’s all programmed on a laptop to occur at a certain time down the drag strip. I have a touch screen that I can change the amount of nitrous for the next run. This adds a bunch of prerequisites set in the controller like engine rpm, full throttle sensor, engine tune ok etc. in theory it’s a safer way to blow up your engine lol

The amount of nitrous in this case is a ‘100 shot’ or 100hp more. The engine might be 450hp and now 550hp with nitrous. A turbo actually is better at delivering the big hp. This is partly because nitrous gets expensive when you are going 200 or 300 shot. But it’s simpler to bolt up nitrous than a turbo and there is the added benefits of more hp off the mark (a turbo needs to wind up), and we still get that V8 sound (a turbo works like a muffler in the exhaust.

Let’s hope the lockdown comes to an end do I can do the tuning.

FAQ

Can I use the nitrous on the street?
I’m told Yes. But you also can’t speed, spin the wheels or accelerate excessively so in reality the answer is no.

Is nitrous a bomb?
It’s not flammable BUT it will make a fire burn like a rocket. However the explosions on Fast and Furious aren’t possible. It would become a much more intense fire perhaps.

Why did they use nitrous on turbo cars in Fast and Furious?
That’s unusual! Well it’s not unusual to use nitrous to help spool up your turbo but using it like that to jump bridges is unusual. This is because a big turbo can do the business on its own. It would, however, work. It’s a recipe for disaster which is why injecting a water/menthol mix in conjunction with the turbo going faster would be more likely today.

Almost ready

12.69 sec for Peter Brock in his group C supercar.

Peter Brock, Calder Park 1/4 mile Drag racing This is a better quality version than I did last time, the tapes not getting any younger so I thought I should do a better version while the going is good