Building A Big Block for Nitrous Oxide - Building For A Big Hit

  |   nitrous Oxide Install big Block From Hell Over the years, we've printed quite a few stories in ST covering the addition of nitrous oxide to sport trucks. In nearly every case, the engine was stock, and the hit of N2O was a small, safe one. That's cool, but what happens when you want to throw a larger shot of laughing gas at your engine? Is it safe? Can you repeatedly feed your engine 200, 300, or more extra horsepower without melting pistons and blowing the air cleaner through the hood of your truck? The answer is yes! There is a catch though: If you want it to live longer than a few seconds after you hit the fun button, then you're gonna have to build your engine a bit differently than you would otherwise. You're also going to be spot-on when tuning your engine.



  |   nitrous Oxide Install nitrous Engine Injecting more than a 100 horsepower shot of nitrous into an engine requires the engine to be built to handle the extra cylinder pressure and heat that will be produced. So where do you start? The build tips presented here apply to any forced-induction application, including supercharged or turbocharged engines, as well as a nitrous engine. Follow along as we turn the Big Block From Hell into a guinea pig for large-dose N2O testing. Next month, we'll address the various ways to tune your engine for safe and reliable nitrous operation. Part One: The Bottom End

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Part Two: The Valvetrain CAM SPECS INTAKE EXHAUST LOBE LIFT .516 .498 DURATION @ .05 277 285 LOBE SEPARATION 116.0 116.0 GROSS VALVE LIFT .877 .846

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Part Three: The Nitrous System

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  |   nitrous Oxide Install msd Programmer Ignition Control Part Four: The Ignition
The last piece of the puzzle is a high-tech ignition system that we bought from Summit Racing designed specifically for using N2O. The MSD 7531 programmable Digital 7 ignition system features MSD's world-famous capacitive discharge ignition, but that's not the cool part. The cool part is that this ignition will automatically retard the ignition timing of the engine whenever the nitrous button is activated. It will also ramp the extra timing back into the engine at a programmable rate after the button is released. This allows any extra nitrous to be spent from the cylinders before the timing is back to full advance. You bracket racers out there will love that you can also program this ignition system to turn the nitrous on and off at a specific time or rpm for repeatable runs. Combine those features with the 7531's data-logging capability, and you've got a box that will do it all for years to come.   |   nitrous Oxide Install bulletproof Nitrous Swilling Monster The Final Word
We've rebuilt the Big Block From Hell to be a bulletproof nitrous-swilling monster. The tips and tricks we learned along the way will help you build or rebuild your own engine into a stout nitrous machine. Next month, we'll take a look at the various methods for tuning your engine to get the most out of it and to make it last.