Nitrous bottle explosion

[petesgn]

http://www.saturnspeed.com/nitrousexplosion.htm

 

[Drac0nic]

I've heard rumors the guy put a plug in his rupture disc or something like that. Don't know if it's true, but being employed at a place that deals with pressurized gasses, I'd believe it. There are all sorts of morons out there who think pressurized gasses are a game. Something that really disturbs me about most nitrous bottles in cars, is it just me or do next to none of them have collars? A guy at the work used to be a mechanic, he did service work for Coke. Coke had an Astro that was totaled from a CO2 bottle having the valve loped off in the back, only thing that saved the driver was it was a caged van.

 

[mazdatech78]

Confused???

Why did this moron put nitrous on a POS maxima. I love ricers, they never cease to amaze me

 

[SyTyJedi]

I remember reading that back in '98. From what I remember reading originally, he wired the bottle heater to be on all the time and put several restrictor type disks in the blowdown tube so it could not relieve pressure properly. Natural selection at work, basically.

 

[87buick3825]

thats a really old post

 

[turbosam6]

Its because NX kits come stock with a plug in that port, and if you run the bottle heater with the valve closed, thats whats going to happen. I bought an NX kit for one of my mustangs and found that plug pre-installed in the hole where the pressure relief valve would be. Brilliant.

 

[denn454]

wow!

but how stupid would you have to be? theres a couple problems i see there. 1st off someone must have over filled the bottle. the guy that fills mine won't go over 1200 psi, he figures expansion might put it to 1500, the bottle is rated (under rated) at 1800 psi. i did leave my full bottle in my trunk one day before a race, i was leaving right after work. the bottle was hot to the touch after a day in the sun, yet it was at 1,550 psi.

wouldn't a bottle heater cook itself or the relay eventually melt after being left on that long? there not made for that.

and there is a pop valve that should have went off also.

thats a one in a million chance there. why wasn't it a riced out honda?

 

[Raven]

What happened with the case?

I'm curious about what happened after the explosion?

Looking at the guy's website, it seems like he wasn't taking ANY responsibility for what happened, nor did I see any mention of plugs or safety issues being ignored. Did I miss that somewhere? It looked like he was solidly placing all the blame on the heater or a faulty safety valve.

So what are the true details of what happened and where do you find them?

 

[turbosam6]

Originally posted by denn454
wow!

but how stupid would you have to be? theres a couple problems i see there. 1st off someone must have over filled the bottle. the guy that fills mine won't go over 1200 psi, he figures expansion might put it to 1500, the bottle is rated (under rated) at 1800 psi. i did leave my full bottle in my trunk one day before a race, i was leaving right after work. the bottle was hot to the touch after a day in the sun, yet it was at 1,550 psi.

wouldn't a bottle heater cook itself or the relay eventually melt after being left on that long? there not made for that.

and there is a pop valve that should have went off also.

thats a one in a million chance there. why wasn't it a riced out honda?

You can put one lb. of nitrous in a bottle and at 400 degrees it will be crazy. Volume is not directly related to psi. Also if you read there is supposed to be a pop off valve but its not in. Hence the damage.

 

[kenny]

Older than the internets and happened like 10min from here.

... and I didn't even click the link.

 

[Drac0nic]

Originally posted by turbosam6
You can put one lb. of nitrous in a bottle and at 400 degrees it will be crazy. Volume is not directly related to psi. Also if you read there is supposed to be a pop off valve but its not in. Hence the damage.

There's a hitch with your theory. Nitrous is a liquid when compressed far enough, like propane or other gasses. A liquid will not compress anywhere near as much as a gas would. Therefore, if you have a tank with %10 of liquified gas it would have a lot more room to expand then a tank with %90 liquified gas. The other thing is that you still have X volume liquified gas that is trying to boil off into vapor, therefore your pressures become a lot higher. This is why when you fill a propane tank it's "full" at %80, or a bit higher on cold days.

Far as the guy who lived 10 minutes away, you ever met the guy? Was he competent? Another thing I find bemusing is the ad for the missing drag car on his site. Almost like he's into insurance fraud or something.

 

[RobR]

That's an old story. From what I remember, he modified the blow off valve and turned on the bottle heater. It never blew off pressure and exploded. I believe he tried suing them and lost because of what he did. That's going from a foggy memory but I think that's what happened.

 

[Raven]

Originally posted by RobR
That's an old story. From what I remember, he modified the blow off valve and turned on the bottle heater. It never blew off pressure and exploded. I believe he tried suing them and lost because of what he did. That's going from a foggy memory but I think that's what happened.

I remember the same but I would like to find an article or something in print that verifies he lost and why. Like I said, his website made it sound like he had NO blame whatsoever and we all know that's not true based on what we've heard.

I would just like to get all the details for my own curiosity.