NITROUS OXIDE ( nos / n2o ) advice forum

My CAD man is looking into it and I hope to have an answer for you by Tuesday.

Do you have or will you be able to switch to a 16 or 18 Volt battery, as the 400 hp Pulsoids need the higher Voltage to maintain their responsiveness at such high flows?

If not can you tell me what start power you think you'll need to use and I'll determine what the highest frequency the Pulsoids will work at over the range you need, to ensure the results will be acceptable.

You wouldn't have to change your alternator and if you want to go as low as 20% start power, then you'd be better doing that at a high frequency and a 16 Volt battery will be needed to do that.

All you'd have to do is swap the battery to a 16 Volt type, keep it topped up prior to races using a 16 Volt charger and then the 12 Volt alternator (which usually kicks out up to 14 Volts) will do an adequate job from there.

The Pulsoids don't draw much current so the battery will easily last a weekend at 16 Volts and after the weekend you can top it back up to the full 16 Volts if it's dropped enough.

You could get away without the 16 Volt battery but you'd have to run a lower frequency and that's not the way to get the best results.

Forgot to mention, just in case you're not aware, 16 Volt batteries have both 16 Volt terminals and 12 Volt terminals, so you don't have to convert your whole car electrics to 16 Volts, it would JUST be used to power the Pulsoids.

ADR,

Not only did my CAD man confirm that we can make you a special Spider with a 6" drop but he misunderstood what I said to him and he's even got part way through making the required parts.

If you get back to Lisa, we'll get you a quote sorted.

Earlier in this thread there is a pic of a central discharge plate made by an American called Eric Lowe.

Some time after the pic was posted he made a post which contained insults and 'inaccurate' statements, so I removed it and responded to him in private.

I've had no response to my emails but I've just managed to make time to edit out his inaccuracies and re-post it with my responses, which now follows;

I'd first like to acknowledge that Eric Lowe, who made the plate shown earlier in this thread with uneven flow, was very smart to have designed a plate (quite some time ago), that used the concept of central discharge when all the main stream nitrous companies, are still banging out spray bar set ups.

Due to the advantages of the central discharge concept as a whole, I'd expect that plate to outperform any other American plate on the market, including the Speedtech and the Wilson plates.

However whilst I acknowledge the plate design is the best from the USA (and seeing anyone but Fulton/Speedtech in America produce a product based on good nitrous science is a big surprise), that plate still falls well short of my Spider plate just as all US nitrous products fall short of the designs of my superior range of products.
Anyone who can't appreciate that fact just by looking at them, isn't as smart as they think they are.

Since posting the picture of Mr. Lowe's central discharge plate he has contacted me to 'claim' that the example in the picture is just a prototype done some 7+ years ago, being the first of 6 revisions, and was used just to verify the “core concept” and to demonstrate it’s ability. However after asking him to post me proof in the form of a picture showing a plate with even distribution he has chosen not to even respond, so you can all draw your own conclusions from that.

He also claims that the reason the discharge is uneven in the picture is to demonstrate that it can be made to do so, which is fair enough if it's true but as he hasn't provided a picture showing even discharge there is no proof of this. Whilst it may be possible to alter the delivery to different cylinder with his plate, it is achieved by drilling the outlets, which is a crude and inaccurate method compared to the Spider which has replaceable metering jets, which is obviously refined and an accurate method of fine tuning a system.

I suggested that If he wanted his plate to be compared favourably with the Spider, he'd have to provide some good shots showing MUCH better plume lengths and density, than those shown in the originally picture but surprise, surprise he's given no response. Obviously if he could prove his plate was even as good as the Spider, he'd do so by posting a pic but with such poor general system design, he'll NEVER be able to match the plumes from the Spider.

I even ask Mr. Lowe to sell me one of his plates so I could carry out some tests on it but again he's failed to respond to my request in numerous emails, which is rather ignorant if you ask me.

Mr. Lowe also seems to think that because his plate is designed to suit a particular type of engine/manifold that it means his plate will produce a better result that the Spider but he fails to appreciate the internal design of the Spider that results in higher flow rates and greater density, both of which are more important than engine/manifold specific manufacture. He also failed to appreciate that the Spider can be easily switched from one manifold to another without needing to go back to the manufacturer for reworking and can be customer tuned at the track if need be.

For some strange reason Mr.. Lowe suggests that putting bends in the Spiders legs would cause some turbulence (which indicates his lack of real high end nitrous knowledge) but that's utter garbage and if he is so concerned about a gentle bend in a Spider leg, why is he still using 'generic' solenoids that have at least 2 sharp 90 degree bends in them?!?!?

Another example of his lack of knowledge is that he also claims that his plate is superior to the Spider because each media (nitrous and fuel) are fed not just from 2 sides, but each are fed from each side (4 nitrous inlets, 4 fuel inlets) but that could also be detrimental to the flow through the system as a whole, because the main supply has to be split into 4 and that's certainly going to cause more phase change but obviously he's not aware of that IMPORTANT detail. Bringing the separated feeds back together again also has the potential to cause a negative effect on flow and density. As long as the output pressures/flows are even, then it doesn't matter how many inputs it has (from that perspective) and the Spider achieves that with just 2 inputs. In conclusion; there are more considerations to take into account when designing a plate than just the number of inputs.

Mr. Lowe's best example of his limited knowledge was his statement claiming that he did not believe I could measure the density of the discharge from the Spider, which obviously infers that he does not know how, but we do have a method of measuring the density of our discharges. Our method may not be considered 'scientific' but it is an adequate technique to prove that our products deliver much denser nitrous than other companies products. I actually doubt that many (if any) other companies have given the density of nitrous discharge any thought, otherwise they'd have stopped using generic solenoids by now.

He went on to suggest that my claims for a more dense discharge were "just a marketing scheme" but this was because the whole subject of nitrous density was outside the realm of his limited knowledge, whereas nitrous density is the heart of every design I produce. I invited him to send me pictures demonstrating the density of his plate plumes but once again this was ignored.

The most astonishing statement he made (which again demonstrates how limited his knowledge is), was that he thought "the Speedtech design is the closest to perfection in minimizing internal flow restrictions" and this indicates that his own plate has some seriously bad internal flow paths, if he admits it's worse than the Speedtech plate. It also shows that he doesn't fully understand the interaction between flow and density.
It's easy to design a free flowing component that suffers phase change and a loss of density, all you need to do is make the flow path as large as possible. However to achieve optimum flow through a given component WITHOUT suffering phase change, requires much more knowledge and a great deal of understanding of the characteristics of nitrous oxide.

I asked Mr. Lowe If he was so smart, why didn't he design a better solenoid while he was designing his plate but again I got no answer, but it's my bet he didn't have a good enough understanding of nitrous flow and density, to appreciate how bad generic solenoids are. Either that or it was too much for him to understand and design a new solenoid, despite them being a very simple component, or maybe he couldn't afford to design a better solenoid and get it manufactured as I did. LOL

He also had the audacity to suggest that 'I' start "investing in research" so he's obvious unaware of the fact that I've spent more time & money on R&D in the past 25 years, on the huge number of unique products that we now offer, than most other companies will ever do. he did however have the sense to acknowledge that "The Spider is unique in a number of respects”, but it's just a shame that he's not smart enough to appreciate the impact of those differences on performance.

By the way, anyone know who this Eric Lowe guy is, because nobody I've spoken to in the USA has ever heard of him?

Now I'd be very sad if I was an American nitrous 'expert' and more American's had heard of some insane Brit than me.

John Clawsie posted an invitation to all manufacturers to participated in the question, who has the best nitrous plate?

http://www.americandragracing.com/xmb1/ ... p?tid=1077

What a load of rubbish from Steve Johnson!!!

Either he isn't aware of my Spider (even though John mentioned it) or he's aware of it and doesn't understand it but either way his claims are UNTRUE.

Maybe he's aware of the Spider and choosing to ignore the advantages, just like many blind people do with regard to all my products.

Once again, their loss not mine.

At least when I get asked a bunch of questions I deal with them all in detail, rather than ignoring the questions (like a politician) then give an answer that suits me and not the answer that was required.

John wrote:
"I was just looking for some more recent info from anyone who has used or is using the plates I listed? I have also heard good news about Prock, Speedtech, NX, and WON! BUT I want "customers" views and comments. People who have spent there own $$$ to say what they thought".
It looks to me, that John is keeping an open mind.

An open mind is the only way, just as long as the end conclusion is based on facts.

I checked out every plate I could find before I made my claims for the Spider and even though I missed one (and I accept there may be more), most of the Spiders features still remain unique and very beneficial to the end performance.

That's more than can be said for Steve Johnson.

I've previously stated that the Speedtech plate was the best US plate design until I was made aware of the Lowe plate.
After being made aware of the Lowe plate I even conceded that it was a better design than the Speedtech plate (assuming his unsubstantiated claims are correct) and I accepted that some of his features were close to those of the Spider BUT you won't see any other nitrous company say anything good about the Spider.

That's because I'm HONEST and willing to give credit where it's due, whereas other companies couldn't stand to lose face by being honest.

The first 2 Spider plates were in track use over the weekend and with GREAT results.

First was Ian Hook who was still using a borrowed engine that was fitted with hypereutectic pistons (which have a bad press in the USA for failure when using nitrous) and the car was now on tires with much less grip. Consequently Ian was taking it VERY STEADY with the nitrous power and limited himself to just 150 hp jets, with rich settings and lots of timing out.

The car ran a 10.05 (ish) without nitrous and dropped to 9.30 (ish) with the Spider.

Last year with a more powerful engine, loads more nitrous (up to 4 times as much) and with much better tires, the car ran 8.17 (ish).

The most AMAZING aspect of the weekends activities when compared to last season was;

1) Last year Ian was launching with more engine power plus a FIXED 200 hp shot from his old NOS set up and then adding my progressive system on top, yet having NO traction issues even on bad tracks.

2) This year he suffered SEVERE traction problems with less engine power and ONLY 25% of a progressive 150 shot from the Spider on a GOOD track. It was so bad that he had to delay the nitrous activation for approx. 1 second to overcome this problem.

Now you could say that the difference in tires could be to blame (even though the track was better than other Ian raced on last year) or you could say the chassis needed to be adjusted to get the best from the new tires BUT in my book, those tires and the set up would have to be HORRENDOUSLY BAD to be unable to handle a POULTRY 37.5 hp shot of nitrous (25% of 150 hp) UNLESS the Spider was making A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF TORQUE.

It's very unfortunate that there have been so many changes to Ian's car that influence this comparison but if you consider that other bikes & cars were posting new PB's using similar tires to Ian's, you have to assume the track was good and therefore the tires should make little bearing on the results.

Therefore we're left with;
1) Last years more powerful engine using a NOS Fogger kit and a fixed 200 shot.

V's

2) This years lower powered engine using a Spider and a progressive 150 shot (starting at just 37.5 hp) and this is ASSUMING that it was optimised, which it wasn't, because they ran it WELL SAFE.

Now which of those two would you expect to have traction issues???

The fact it was the Spider, what would you conclude from that???


Next up was Ron Haslett who had all the main components as they were last year but for some reason the car was running slower NA than it had last year and was less than consistent, with some runs being over a second slower than his previous best NA ET.
Eventually a number of engine set up issues were found and the results settled down to just 3 tenths slower than last year.

Ron had the prototype Spider at the end of last year and a Maximiser, this year he had the production Spider and the Max Extreme.

After I located a faulty micro switch, Ron was at last able to do a nitrous run successfully but because of previous failures (due to the micro switch), by then we'd cranked the power up to a VERY SAFELY SET 300 hp.
On VERY SOFT Max settings, Ron posted a new PB on his FIRST NITROUS PASS of 9.8 (ish) and this equated to approx. a 1.5 sec improvement over his NA runs on the day.

He was then thrust into the heat of battle against one of the quickest cars in the class (8.3 ish), so we cranked up the power to 450 hp.
Unfortunately I think all the problems and the pressure of the first couple of days had got to him and he pushed through the staging lights pulling a red light. However on VERY SOFT Max settings and with a good 1/2 second penalty from accidentally breaking the beams before deciding to make the run anyway, he still posted a 10.0 (ish) run and was VERY HAPPY with how the pass felt.

The best thing to report from BOTH these results, was that BOTH sets of plugs showed PERFECT DISTRIBUTION and even after such strong results on Ron's car there were no signs of distress on the plugs, so there is plenty left to come.

I'm completely confident that Ron will run in the mid to low 8s and that Ian will run in the 7s as we progress through this season.

The funniest part of this weekend in relation to the Spider, was that people who wouldn't normally bother to speak to me, were eager to check out the Spider and ALL of them expressed approval and interest in it.

I've been waiting for the timing data from the Thunderball to become available so I can give accurate results..............

As Trev said above,we are using a borrowed engine(I must say a big THANKYOU to Tim Jackson)which has hypereutectic pistons.both of the above meant we couldn't use a lot of nitrous...........

The Spider plate arrived Wednesday and was eagerly unpacked...........
What a superb looking bit of kit!!! And, a lot smaller than I had imagined.

We arrived at the track on Thursday afternoon and set about fitting the plate.All that was required was remove the existing 2" carb spacer and replace it with the Spider.Problem #1,the 2" spacer is in fact a std holley to dominator pattern adapter.No problem we thought,the Spider can sit between the "spacer" & the carb.Problem #2, this positioned the "distribution head" of the Spider IN the 2" spacer
All was resolved after a couple of calls to Trev for instructions how to bend the tubes down enough to point into the manifold runners.
The rest of the fitting was a piece of cake

All nitrous runs were done with 160/160 jetting(2 pairs)

QUALIFYING:

Run # 1: No nitrous pass : 10.002 @ 133.48mph

Run # 2: No delay,50% start, ramp 1sec. : 10.626 @ 142.94mph. The car lit the tyres IMMEDIATELY on launch!

Run # 3: No delay,25% start, ramp 1sec. : 10.001 @ 144.68mph. The car lit the tyres approx 3ft from launch!

Run # 4: 1sec delay,25% start, ramp 2 sec. : 9.470 @ 144.85mph. Ian said he could not feel the nitrous hit at all!

Run # 5: 0.7sec delay,25% start, ramp 1.5sec: 9.367 @ 145.73mph.
Ian still cannot feel the nitrous hit.

run # 6: 0.7sec delay,25% start, ramp 1.0 sec: 9.401 @ 142.48mph.
Although the car was quicker to 990ft it went very rich towards the top of the track,I suspect that the mid afternoon air was to blame!

Run # 7: 0.5sec delay,25% start, ramp 0.7 sec: 9.484 @ 143.75mph.
The car "turned" the tyres around 50-60ft from the start.

ELIMINATIONS:

Round # 1: 0.6sec delay,25% start, ramp 0.9 sec: 9.302 @ 142.86mph.
We put 1 degree of timing back in and dropped the fuel pressure 0.5lb to try to combat the "afternoon air"

CONCLUSIONS:
We used 1.25lbs of nitrous every pass(this includes connecting /disconnecting and purging)(actual engine usage would be @1lb)
I feel that a 0.7second improvement on a 10.0 second car is a huge leap considering the small doses we were using.
The launch & 60ft times could be improved with some suspension changes,
I suspect we cannot "hit" the tyres hard enough to get full weight transfer.
To get the most from this setup would also require the gearing to be lowered,it is currently geared for 170mph+ terminal speeds and runs about 110mph in first gear!
If this engine had forged pistons I think that times in the 8.50-8.60s would not be out of the question with nitrous usages around 3.5lbs per run.

Brain.

That all sounds good to me Brain, thanks for the precise report.

Damn it Trev, now i'm gonna have to sell this Wilson plate and send you some money......let us know when these become available with the "smooth" setup.

Hi Comet,

The Spiders are available NOW and with aset of Pulsoid will produce results that will blow your mind - ask the Fat Boys & Ron what they think about their results.

The Revo's won't be available till much later in the year to the general public, so rather than waste that time till they are available, you might like to consider using the pulsed technology with the Spider till then.

Janna, I certainly didn't get the response that I was hoping for on that site and the question. I'm certainly keeping an open mind, and wallet due to the fact that these things cost people $$$. But also the fact that the rules call for certain things, weather plate of port systems. Still didn't do anything yet and will be looking to.

I didn't get ANY customers responses for the questions. I have been in touch with Fatty, Johnny Barb, Beyond and a few others from here. These systems still seem yo have a little more thought and technology then the others. Once I figure out what I want to do with the car, I will see what best fits MY needs.

PLEASE keep the info and reports flowing. Thanks, John

Trev, over there, I got NO RESPONSE from customers of any systems! Like I said, I have been in touch with yours like Fatty, Johnny, and Beyond, but I also think they might not be on that site to respond there as well, but I HAVE heard from them. I have heard from NO OTHER SYSTEMS/CUSTOMERS.

Little more thought and technology, I thought that would get a response, LOL

Trev, this one:

http://www.americandragracing.com/xmb1/portal.php

Hi John,

You could have made it that easy for me first time!!!!


I've never read such SHIT in my life as that post from Steve Johnson, having said that I've never seen a post by him that wasn't a crock of shit!!!!

If ever proof were needed of how stupid he is, then the following extract proves it, because only a fool makes such sweeping INCORRECT statements rather than checking out the competition first!!!!

The text below in yellow is the extract and my responses are in white.


John,

I think it's safe to say our Victor Jr. cross bar style plate is better and different then any others out there.
UTTER RUBBISH and if "different" is a measure of performance it's news to me but whatever the case, they don't come any more "different" than our Spider and the differences between the Victor Jr and other plates is insignificant in comparrison to the Spider.

If you take a look at the plate you may start to see some of the differences.
First, It has two nitrous and two fuel solenoids. No other single stage plate system offers this.
WRONG - The Spider has two nitrous and two fuel solenoids and is designed for use primarily for single staged progressive applications.

Second, the spray bars are actually four seperate sets of bars. They are dead headed in the middle.
The Spider has EIGHT sets of bars (discharge tubes) and are far better because they are NOT dead headed.

Third, this is the most under advertised plate on the market.
WRONG - We do not advertise ANY of our products - we rely on word of mouth and our web site ONLY, so you don't get anymore under advertised than that.

Edelbrock only advertises it with settings from 200-400 horsepower. Lets break it down though. Most are familiar with the NOS Big Shot system. One nitrous and one fuel solenoid. The combined area of holes in each spray is roughly equal to .120. They rate it at 325,350+, or even 400 HP depending on the ad.
In simplicity my point is ours has twice the solenoids (two nitrous and two fuels) and over twice the square area in holes in the combined spray bars. Wouldn't it be easy to say our's should make 650 HP(325 X 2 = 650) plus horsepower based on the components in the kit.
Likewise with the right flow solenoids the Spider can flow in excess of 700 hp worth of nitrous and if we see a need for more, we can offer them at 1,000 hp.

Forth, this is the only plate kit out there with four nitrous and four fuel jets. You can do more fine tuning then with any other plate out there.
WRONG - The Spider is designed to use not JUST four but EIGHT sets of jets (if needed) and therefore offers much finer tuning and even per cylinder tuning, that no other plate offers.

Fifth, our kits have stainless steel jets,
I've yet to see the need for stainless jets, despite claims that brass ones wear and I've seen no evidence that if they do wear it is significant enough to be a problem.

the nitrous solenoids all have Teflon plungers,
A more outdated and unsuitable material you couldn't find and far less suitable than the unique material we use.
Out of interest we've just stripped the new NX Lightning solenoid and discovered that they've stopped using teflon (at last) and it now looks like they're using the SAME material as we use!!!! WHAT A SURPRISE!!!!
So that's the following features NX have copied from our Pulsoid;
1) Raised the inlet port above the outlet seat for better flow.
2) Modified the back side of the outlet seat to increase flow.
3) Changed the body to alloy from stainless to reduce weight and improve appearance.
4) Changed from PTFE to material 'X' to stop leaks and improve life span
It's just lucky for us that NX weren't smart enough to see all the IMPORTANT but SUBTLE differences between our Pulsoids and generic solenoids, otherwise we'd have lost our advantage over them, well ONLY till we launched the REVO that is.

and the cross style gives the best distribution on any style of plate.
UTTER RUBBISH it couldn't possibly get close to the Spider, I doubt it's even close to the Speedtech plate and I'd even expect the Zex plate to be better than the Victor Jr.

Sixth, the system can be made into a two stage system with just a few changes.
Should anyone be STUPID enough to want to convert a single progressive stage to 2 fixed stages, then the Spider could be used that way but we're about advancing nitrous technology NOT keeping it in the Dark Ages!!!!!

I have been working for Edelbrock for over three years now. I worked for NOS for eight before this. This is the most under rated plate out there !!! I have sold these to many of my racers and told then to start on the 200 HP settings. All have told me that they have gone quicker and faster then they did with there previous kits on as big as 350 HP settings. The Victor Jr. has even out ran some of the other direct port systems out there
All I can say to that is God help them all once the Spider shows what it can do!!!!

Strange that no actual plate users gave you a response but as we've only sold a few Spiders so far and the only ones in use at present are in the UK, it's not surprising that there were no responses on a US forum from my customers.

John Heard (Beyond) has one of our Spiders in the US and once he's got his car fully built, he's intending to do some comparrison dyno pulls between it and the plate he already has, so we can give an INDEPENDENT appraisal of what the Spider can do.

Trev, Like I said in that thread over there:

"I know people don't like or care for WON systems, but there Spider plate seems to have merrit?"

I have spoken with beyond on this matter. There is not a lot of love for your product over in the "colonies". Those haters don't understand the products and the passion you have for this stuff, which might rub some the wrong way seeing you challenge these large USA NOS companies.

I hate the fact the my business is suffering at this time, but it looks like things are starting to creep back up, that means back into the car deal for 2008 season. Due to some of the rules that are in effect, this plate seems to fit my needs better, and I see the benefits of the Spider over the others. It's taken longer then I like, but I'm sure that when the car comes out with this plate, it will surprise a lot of people.

BTW Trev, there is a MAJOR race over here in 2008. At the CFSCS (CANADIAN FASTEST STREET CAR SHOOTOUT) some of your UK racers are coming back for the World Street Race II. I was wondering since racers from Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Sweden and a few other places are too show, will YOU and WON be here with a display and maybe a couple cars, like Johnny and Beyond???? Would be a major way to get your product out to various groups from around the world, PLUS the North American market????

After a badly rain affected Bug Jam here are our results..........

We now have 225 jets fitted in the spider plate.

On the 1st qualifying pass (Sunday morning) we ran a very dissapointing 9.65.As soon as the car returned to the pit area I weighed the nitrous bottles to find only 1lb used.After suffering a similar problem at round 4,it was obvious that we have an electrical issue somewhere, causing the system to either shut off part way through the run or causing only one pair of solenoids to work

The turn-around for Q2 was only about 30 minutes so I fiddled with the connector blocks to try to "fix it"

Qualifying #2: WORSE the car ran 9.90(only 1/10 sec quicker than normally aspirated) Ian said he could feel the nitrous coming in and out throughout the run but because the delivery is so smooth he hadn't felt it previously.

We decided to sit out Q3 and I set about ripping out all the nitrous system wiring from the maximiser to the solenoids and replacing it with new.
I also by-passed the fuel pressure safety switch(after verifying we had the correct pump pressure!!!) just in case that was causing the problem.

Qualifying #4: THATS BETTER...... 9.26 @ (I think)143mph. An NPB with Tims' borrowed motor. We still had a LOT of retard in and a slowish build so definately a result.

Eliminations #1: we were facing Al Simms who had qualified with an 8.70.
We pulled out all the stops and put in the quickest ramp we thought we could get away with.......The lights dropped and Ian was away with more than a 4/10 advantage. Al's car backfired on the launch and then span the tyres a little,but his 9.1 ET couldn't catch the 9.35 from the FB coupe!
(Ian reported after the run that he had actually peddaled the car about 20ft out as he could feel it getting very loose)

So........ 9.26 and 9.35 with a pedal.......We're moving fowards........ Please join us in prayer for some good weather over the August bank holiday weekend!!!! so we can get some decent track time and try for the 9.1s..........

Brain.