Pleez answer a nos safety? for my friend

[SilverSleeper]

Ok, heres the deal. Is it or isn't it flammable?
If you open the valve and light a match will it blow you to heck?
If you crack a line will it light up?
My friend thinks he knows it all cuz he went to college for auto mechanics. He put a 300shot capable plate system on his 455 69 cutlass. I know, hes nuts. He is only running a 150 shot last time it was out.
He says it isnt flammable cuz it cools the intake charge and therefore cant ignite. Now, I have seen enough blown off hoods and engine fires to know something isnt right. He says that it only blows up because you are using too much, or if the fuel pressure drops. Whats the story??
Also, He refuses to put a purge valve on it. I tell him its for a safety sake. It purges the hot gas that builds up out of the system before a race, right? If the gas gets hot enough, with a loose spark it will blow up right? He electrical system is always shaky at best. He runs his motor really hot for some reason too, which also worries me. He keeps it at about 200* all the time, last I checked. He says that a purge valve is just to make the charge more dense when you let it loose. He says he doesnt want to purge it, because the "harder hit" will break his tires loose.
Personally I think he is on crack. Im scared of the stuff myself. But, since he is gonna use it, I dont want him to blow himself up.
After reading Raven's newest story, it got me thinking again. When racing season comes around, I would hate to see that happen to him. (btw, read Raven's story, its awesome)
Hope someone can help here.
This kid has been to the hospital too many times because of stupid accidents and overlooking safety. Thanks gang.

 

[REDS HOT AIR]

it is not flamable in any way.

nitrous= nitrogen = not flamable
oxide= oxygen = again not flamable.

that should make you feel alil better
i have used nos for manny years (not on the buick) and i also fill bottles

the only difference between the nitrous used in the medical field and the stuff used in the cars is that they add sulfur to the gas used for cars to keep people from using it a a huffing drug.

 

[SilverSleeper]

If its not flammable, then read Raven's latest story in the kills section (about 9 paragraphs down) and explain this:

"Fitting cracked on NOS line......the highly flammable gas escaping..cross paths with an errant spark...an explosion was the first thing.. before the hood was flung from the engine compartment.."
Not to give Raven any grief if it isnt in fact flammable, but I have heard the same thing about otherracing mishaps. I mean, I know that the "rumors"(?) of it being flammable have to stem from something. From what I have heard, there are just as many people that say it is as that say it isnt.

 

[BLACK6PACK]

I could be wrong about nitrogen, but oxygen is flamable. Try to burn a candle in a vacume where there is no oxygen, it wont burn. That is why a candle goes out when you cover it up. It uses the oxygen as fuel to burn. Once the oxygen is burnt up (on a covered candle) the flame goes out.

 

[SilverSleeper]

Wait a minute, thats true.. oxygen is flammable.
Anyone ever see those hospital supply trucks with the tanks of qxygen on them? They clearly say flammable. Want to put out a fire? Throw a towel on it.. deprives of oxygen. I remember high school chemistry (a little). 1st day of class.The teacher had balloons filled with various gases. Lit each one to see if it was flammable. The oxygen balloon nearly singed my hair

 

[Hi-psi]

Ok,...I know this doesn't sound right,...but oxygen is a required componant of fire,...but it in itself is not flamable.

In any case,...nitrous oxide is not flamable. Many times the fire you may see at the track is a result of the car firing back through the carburator. Or if it's a wet system,...all the extra fuel ignites. And in some case,...the motor over revs on the nitrous and floats to valves causing the intake valves to be actually open during the ignition stroke causing part of the combustion process to come back out the motor through the intake & carburator or throttle body.

 

[REDS HOT AIR]

oh boy...... how about this one.....

a race car or any other is not allowed to carry any fuel line inside a car not even a braided line to a pressure gauge because fuel is flamable

a battery has to be outside of driver compartment or behind some kind of firewall also because batt. acid is flamable

a nos bottle can be mounted any were inside the car as long as its secured and has a blowoff tube so it wont cause a wrerck with 3000# of gas at -126 degrees goes flying out.

i have lit a smoke and even put my lighter out with nos plenty of times just to prove this fact.

i can tell none of you have nos or been around it cause it says on the bottle non flamable

as far as oxygen goes ....dont mix oil in with high pressured oxygen BOOM if you look at oxygen pressure gauges you'll notice they say use no oil

 

[1badTTA]

Hi-PSI, you are correct, remember the old saying, if you have fuel, air, and spark, it will run? ie... oxygen, gasoline and an ignition source.

Red, yes NOS is safe and legal to have mounted inside a car without a firewall between the passenger and bottle unlike fuel of any kind.

P.S. servicing LOX (liquid oxygen used for breathing in aircraft) can be very fun, just dont step on it if you have any grease on your foot (ouch)

 

[bobc455]

Three things are required for combustion- fuel, oxygen, and energy.

Think about a fireplace- same thing is happening, just a different fuel (wood vs. gasoline). The energy in a fireplace comes from heat (a match), the energy in a gas engine comes from the spark. And when you blow more oxygen (air) onto a fire, it gets hotter (burns faster). Make sense?

Nitrous oxide is a source of oxygen, and not a flammable fuel. Nitrous oxide introduces extra oxygen into an engine so that you can add more fuel and get more power- it's the additional fuel that gives you the power. The additional oxygen from Nitrous just allows you to maintain the correct air:fuel ratio (or more correctly, oxygen:fuel ratio). The reason that nitrous is considered so dangerous is that it's easy to get the ratio of nitrous to fuel wrong, hence running very lean or rich (causing detonation or backfires). Same thing happens to a turbo motor when it runs lean- Boom!

The cooling effect comes from the basic ideal gas law- PV=nRT (and it's various forms)- since the pressure drops, the temperature drops. When you remove the core from a tire valve, ever notice ice form on the vavle? Same phenomen. Actually that is one benefit of running nitrous vs. a turbo- this law works the wrong way when you have a turbo motor, increasing pressure will increase the temperature (hence the need for an intercooler).

And if one more person calls nitrous "NOS" (a brand name for a manufacuter of nitrous equipment or an abbreviation for New Old Stock pieces), I'll blow my own pressure relief cap. Call it N2O, nitrous, the juice, laughing gas, whatever.

-Bob Cunningham
bobc@gnttype.org

 

[BoostKillsStres]

oxygen is not flammable

Fire is a chemical reaction requiring an oxidizer which oxygen is one type.

Oxidation reactions are usually very exothermic. Therefore, if a compound says "OXIDIZER", this means that it can cause other materials to combust more readily (or upon contact!) or make fires burn more fiercely.

If you have an environment where there is a highly concentrated amount of oxidizer and a conbustable material it can generate an extreme exothermic reaction such as an environment w/ liquid oxygen present as in hospitals and in the early space program where the astronauts died in the capsule on the launch pad when a spark of some type happened. Whatever generated that spark became the initial fire because of the near 100% oxygen environment it was in.

Then you have the space shuttle, liguid hydrogen and oxygen, light a candle, pump it out the back and boom you have a exothermic reaction resulting in water vapor and hot gasses exiting at 6000 mph. This provides 29% of the shuttles liftoff power. The external tank holds 1.6 million lbs. of these two propellant compounds.

Nitrous is simply 2 nitrogen and 1 oxygen molecules w/ usually some sulfer thrown in so its not inhaled. Some people try and find medical grade N20 so the sulfer isn't present. Nitrogen goes through the liquid to gas phase change at I believe -174 F and provides the cooling effect and more fuel must be added because of the extra oxygen(oxidizer) otherwise an extreme lean condition is created and detonation and parts consumption occurs because of the extra oxidizer.

If you injected just nitrogen you would still get the cooling effect but your now displacing the normal amount of oxygen which will reduce the normal combustion reaction and I imagine you won't make any more power and may make less otherwise why don't we see nitrogen injection kits? On the other hand if you injected liquid oxygen you better give it something to burn besides your engine and the engine better be able to take the heat aka space shuttle = engine is out the back Part of the precombustion process on the shuttle engines run the pumps that send the liquid H and O out the back kind of like our turbos if you think about the basic concept.

I'm done.
Mark
87GN

 

[MuscleMayhem]

Nitrious is not flamable but........ if you heat the bottle up enough it will explode hehe... the only way it combusts is under pressure...

 

[bobc455]

No, pressure will not cause nitrous to combust. It cannot combust.

Too much pressure in any container will cause it to explode, but that is not the same as combusting.

Pardon me if you were being sarcastic...

 

[MuscleMayhem]

well when i mean combust i mean explode... sorry didnt use the right terminology... but if you take a big N2O bottle and throw it in an inncinerator it will deffinetly explode...

-Jason

 

[bobc455]

Not to mention it would supply more oxygen to the incinerator, causing bigger problems!!! (see above)

Sorry to be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, I was just trying to keep it clear because that was the nature of the original question.

-Bob Cunningham

 

[Way2QWK]

NOS rules

Most people with no NOS experiance tend to think its flammable, when its not. Perfect example, remember in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS when the asian guys shoot-up the Mitsubishi or what ever it was, and they yell out "the NOS" and the car blows up. That dont help explaining the truth about nitrous, that why most honda queers are scared of it. I run a 200 shot plate system from nitrous express on my Challenger and love nitrous.

 

[KEVINS]

I've been running the stuff for 15 yrs, and I love it!
Oh, and by the way, SilverSleeper, it sounds like your buddy knows more about it than you do so you should try and learn something from him about it

ks

 

[JDEstill]

Originally posted by MuscleMayhem
well when i mean combust i mean explode... sorry didnt use the right terminology... but if you take a big N2O bottle and throw it in an inncinerator it will deffinetly explode...

-Jason

Well, the bottle will explode because of the pressure of the nitrous inside it. The nitrous itself would not be exploding. The bottle would explode with anything inside it, CO2, Argon, Water, whatever.

John

 

[SilverSleeper]

Okay, so its not flammable... I guess us stupid people can learn something once in awhile
Well, since he wont blow himself up with it that way, how about a fuel pressure safety switch??? Nah, he dont need that. He also has no divider in the trunk, and he has the bottle and the battery in the back too. I guess safety takes a back seat to power. Nah, I have to learn to listen to my friend more often and follow his examples. Wanna see the pics of the new 6 gallon fuel cell I mounted in between my front seats??? Its held in securely by a really good bungee cord.

Kidding aside, I just want to make sure hes not gonna end up in flames in the sand at the end of the track, or upside down somewhere before that. Ive known him since preschool, I still hafta keep an eye on him. Just looking out for safety... something I wish more people would.

 

[ST. RACE]

Put the flame in front of the bottle crack it open and then you can hold it in your hands.
Stick your finger in front of the bottle wait 3 seconds and pick it up off the ground.
NOS is more addicting than [crack].