NITROUS OXIDE ( nos / n2o ) advice forum

My Wizards of nos kit arrived yesterday... the cat looks pretty amazed at it all



I shall post up in here my progress with my install, and any problems i encounter along the way,
hopefully you guys can assist me

it is helpful to have a pic posted of the area where your stuck because it makes it much easier to answer. And once you get it all done the first time, you'll realize just how easy a task it is to fit nitrous to a vehicle.

http://www.noswizard.com/pdf/Car%20UK%20SP%20WET%20Manual.pdf

All fitting instruction links are accessible from the won home page.

Oooooh Shiny!

What Vehicle is this going on?

You were lucky to get a second hand copy at half price as they are limited availability and should be going up in value.

Ohh mine wont be for sale thats for sure
Glad to hear it.

I do have David vizards book on Nitrous, (along with several other Vizard books)...

But the nitrous one, interesting as it is, is a bit out dated now.
Until I was asked to work with David Vizard (many years ago), I considered him a GOD (I read every book and magazine article that he ever wrote) but within seconds of meeting him I discovered that he actually 'KNEW' VERY LITTLE, in fact it was embarrassing to see how little he knew.
Like most people who write technical books, they know NOTHING about the subjects they write about, as ALL they do is TEMPORARILY soak up the knowledge, from those that DO KNOW and put it down in text form.
This is partly because those that can do stuff well either aren't very good at putting it in text form or they are too busy doing it to write about it.

I'm pretty sure that my book is UNIQUE, in that it contains ONLY FIRSTHAND knowledge (rather than a selection of knowledge from a number of secondhand sources) and was written by me, although I certainly had a LOT of help from my daughter and my team of employees in preparing, gathering, organising, collating and editing it.

For your further information I was bound by certain limitations when I wrote the first book and I was also ripped off by the publishers, so I'm in the process of writing another book, that I'll be publishing myself, which will contain EVERY SCRAP of knowledge, that I've personally discovered during the past 35 years, to ensure that none of my time and effort doing so or the knowledge itself, goes to waste after I'm done.

it will be going on my mk7 Fiesta 1.6 zetec s

You know I got dibs on the first book, right?

You know I got dibs on the first book, right?

in that case i want dibs on the 2nd book
As above.

another very good book i own is a book about ignition, by Dr Jacobs... I have a Jacobs Pro street ignition system on my capri, its similar to an MSD multi sparking capacitor discharge system... you can run massive plug gaps with it.
I have the same book (amongst every book on tuning that was ever printed) and I used the same ignition on my 2.6 Rover race car and still have it somewhere.
Although the spark is stronger than the average stock ignition, after extensive testing I didn't find any worthwhile improvement in any way, over the stock electronic ignition. I've also found that having an excessively strong spark can cause as many problems as one that is too weak, as an excessively strong spark can cause misfires by leaking out of the system, whereas a weak spark fails by not getting across the plug gap.

It really does improve throttle response and mpg (gas mileage) on my modified Ford ohc engine.
People often come to this conclusion because they are replacing an OLD TIRED stock ignition system with a NEW aftermarket unit, which isn't a fair comparison. My tests were carried out between all new components.

According to the book Jacobs actually make the circuitry etc inside a lot of the MSD and Allison ignition systems...
That may well be the case but it wouldn't be something I'd want people to know, as the failure rate is terrible.

The only problem i encountered with the Jacobs ignition, is rotor arms dont last too long, the little resistor burns out quite quickly... I had a go at modifying
rotor arms by putting a strip of brass where the resistor is.
The first thing I advise customers to do (as you'll see in my book), is replace the carbon resistor with a brass rod (even on stock ignition systems), as they soak up power and weaken the spark, so you did right to ditch that.
That's also a good example of another negative of such a high voltage system, it shortens the life of ALL the parts it passes through.

For your further information, I was the first to conceive of pulsed nitrous technology but Jacob's was the first company to actually market one. I bought, tested and still have one of their first units somewhere. It was/is a nice looking unit and performed well but it's a RPM based system, which I've since found not to be as suitable as time based delivery.

I used to manufacture my own ignition systems which were INDUCTIVE discharge systems rather than CAPACITIVE discharge. Most OEM ignitions are the INDUCTIVE type but they are only strong enough to fire a modest amount of nitrous. Capacitive units are TOO STRONG, so I went for the INDUCTIVE type and came up with a UNIQUE method of increasing the spark ONLY when nitrous was activated and it was only increased to the level that was needed, rather than an excessive amount.
These worked very well but when car manufacturers made the switch to fuel injection, there was nowhere to fit our trigger components to, so we stopped manufacturing them.

BTW the ONLY reason I ended up with their ignition system is because they LIED to me. I bought the progressive controller and it stated in bold text that it MUST be used with a Jacob's ignition system - they didn't mention that when I was speaking to them about buying their controller. So being young and naive I bought their ignition, only to find that when it arrived it stated in bold text, that it MUST be used with their HT leads, which again there was no mention of prior to this point.
Each time I made an order it took close to a month to arrive, so a combination of impatience and the feeling of being taken for a sucker, made me decide to try the controller with the stock ignition parts and it worked fine.

Some companies rob the source of their income blind, rather than play fair and be honest.

Since you're all talking about ignition, Trev, I tested the 50 hp jetting with the Sonic today and it didn't go all that well.
That's unfortunate.

I tried using some non resisted spark plugs and they didn't work well at all because it caused caused the engine to shudder (like that problem I had some months ago),
Resistor plugs (and general suppression) are essential on modern OEM injected engines as the ECU's are very sensitive to interference, so that will be why you had problems with those plugs.

so then I went back to my previous plugs and that hesitation disapperear; but the 50 hp feels weak, especially at high RPM. The car is still low on mileage (less that 45k miles/ 72k kilometers) and the gaps are 0.028". Should I reduce the gap further, or should I look into some sort of method of increasing the spark strength like an ignition amplifier?
Ideally you need to increase the spark strength by whatever 'suppressed' means is available to you but failing that or at least until you manage that, then closing the plug gaps a few thou more should help.

BTW 50 hp feels REALLY GOOD for about a second before the power plops over.
Very frustrating but typical of lack of ignition strength, although it would also be worth checking the following;
1) For a blocked nitrous filter as that would cause the same effect
2) A faulty trigger to the nitrous system - this would only be a potential cause if it stops making any power increase at all
3) Inadequate current to the Pulsoids - this would be a potential cause if the power drops to below normal, as the fuel Pulsoid would open on low current while the nitrous would not.
4) Final suspect would be incorrectly adjusted nitrous Pulsoid seat position.