MIxing Nitro

I was having lunch with John Everett a few days ago and he mentioned that I could mix a cup Nitro per gallon of reg gas and get more power out of my car at the track. Any of you top fuel veterans have any input on this? And where do I get me some?

 

What John said is absolutely true. However, one of my nephews did just that with a high compression engine and the results were catastrophic. I guess it was fun while it lasted. John may have done this in one of his nail heads, you should ask him if 20 gal of pump gas to 8 oz. of nitro is a safe mix. Compression and tune are very important. (or should I say lower compression) You should be able to get this at the race track from the fuel truck who also sells alcohol, methanol, Q16 etc. Good luck! See if you can pick up a spare motor while you're there.

 

I was thinking about the Regal Its a 72 low comp engine. My current tune is set for running a small nitrous shot. Plenty of fuel and less timing. How much of a gain can I expect and how much can I mix. 8 OZ per 20 gals seems like a very small amount. Im looking to pick up a 1/4 sec in the 1/8 and be more consistent than running the spray to get where I want to be.

 

Any other input?

 

There are a variety of racing fuels available from folks who supply go-carts racers etc. You could add some to your tank that way instead of pure nitro and it would be safer. Nitro also has a tendency to wash down the cylinders. Becareful.

 

Ignition timing also changes as nitro burns a lot slower than gasoline. 80-100% Nitro cars run timing in the 40's at WOT, so I'm sure the timing has to be adjusted someways to account for that. I've also heard it's harder to tune 80% nitro than 100% nitro and even harder with lower percentages because of dealing with two different burn rates of the mixed fuel. In any case, mis-tuned nitro use usually hammers rod bearings in short order.

 

Sure, but with a disclaimer that John and Ken should know more about actual nitro.

The short answer is no.

My experience comes from professionally racing snowmobiles. We were a class limited heads up racing. And one of the limitations were fuel. They would test our fuel pretty much after every heat race but for sure after the final so the best thing not to do was cheat with fuel.

That being said, we knew the limitations of the fuel and had the equipment to test our own.

We were known for doing a lot of various testing for anything just to get the edge. So one of our race gas sponsors at the time which was Torco wanted feed back from some new products on the dyno and on the track. One being Nitro mixed with gasoline.
Nitro is normally mixed with methanol which I have zero experience with.
But do know mixed with gas it will separate almost instantly. You would need a couple agents added to make it work. One being something to keep it from separating, one for top end lube, and one for a cooling agent. Torco did give us a mixture already added to the nitro...what it was I don't know.
And then you would have to experiment with jetting. We had to jet way up to make it live and work.

After all that, the gains were minimal (mixed with gas anyways).

I think you would be better off with something like Q16 or other ways to oxyenate gasoline.

Keep in mind this was all on 2-cycle engines...

 

Briz like I said the fuel volume needs to increase when adding nitro to the engine. The small amount that I suggested would not need much of a timing change if any. The noticable change would be the exhaust sound and smell. Nitro would also clean out the fuel system. As for the gain there are to many variables to guess the outcome.
Again the small fuel amount should not hurt the engine any different than the shot of NOS.

The timing on our Methanol car is around 38-44 depending on the power we are trying top get.
The timing in the blown Fuel car when we run around 84% is 51-55 degrees depending on the weather.


Remember if you can't afford to blow it up pay close attention to what you are doing. There is a learning curve, and like people all engines seem to be different.

Be careful and have fun, "IF" you don't want to be careful try a few ounces of Hydrazine:eek2::3gears::error::error::error::error:

 

Id like to give it a shot. Gonna look into a local supplier to get me some of that stuff. I've been wanting to build a stronger engine for the last year. If I really mess up I'll have an excuse.

 

^^^ Definitely the guy that'd know IMO.