We’re willing to bet most of you have never heard of Zex. As a matter of fact, it was news to us when we saw the press release. But what enticed us the most was the phrase “world’s only smart nitrous system.”
Unlike virtually every other nitrous kit we’ve seen, the Zex Nitrous System is completely self-contained with all the necessary ports extending from a black box controller. The unit relies on bottle pressure to regulate the nitrous-to-fuel ratio. Inside the weatherproof box, the Nitrous Management Unit (NMU) has a bleed orifice that measures bottle pressure and regulates fuel enrichment according to that reading. This means the engine always gets a perfect nitrous-to-fuel mixture no matter what the bottle pressure is. The dry system that we installed on our ’88 5.0L Mustang simply fogs the manifold with nitrous rather than dumping both fuel and nitrous into the intake. To get the extra fuel enrichment needed to make the power, the NMU measures bottle pressure and then sends a vacuum signal to the stock fuel regulator to spike up the fuel pressure and increase fuel delivery through the engine’s stock injectors. With all that thinking going on, it’s a pretty remarkable system.
The Zex kit is rated to produce from 75 to 125 hp depending on the jets you install. And while they don’t supply you with the additional nitrous/fuel jets, a little birdie told us that the Zex Nitrous System can safely give you up to a 200hp increase with a proper fuel system consisting of a better fuel pump and larger injectors to meet the demand of this power increase.
Installing the Zex Nitrous System on our car was a cinch. It could have taken as little as two hours to install if not for the excruciating job of dropping the fuel tank (which you have to do with any nitrous kit) to mount the nitrous bottle correctly in the trunk. We probably could have gotten away with mounting it behind the passenger seat (the back seat is never used), but since the Zex system is such a nice unit, it deserved to be installed with style—even if it meant we had to get a little dirtier. We even took it a step further and hid the NMU under the front cowling, so unless you knew what you were looking for, you would never suspect this topless cruiser packed a punch. Read on to see how simple it really is!
