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Illustrated : Typical Nitrous Kit
Illustrated : Typical Nitrous Kit
Nitrous Oxide - Basics: The chemical symbol for nitrous oxide is N2O. This implies that a nitrous oxide molecule consists of 2 parts nitrogen and 1 part oxygen. If nitrous oxide is heated to about 270°C, the molecule breaks down and releases its primary elements, namely nitrogen and oxygen. If nitrous is injected into an engine, along with the fuel-air mixture, the extra oxygen released during the combustion stage can be used to harness more power. If sufficient fuel is added to balance the additional oxygen that is created, the mixture will burn hotter and create higher cylinder pressures. The nitrogen that is also released during combustion will dampen the sudden increase in cylinder pressure. This helps to reduce the risk of damage being caused to vital engine components such as the piston and the head gasket.
Nitrous is stored in a liquid form, under pressure in a bottle. The liquid is fed to the inlet manifold where it is injected into the inlet air. As this happens, the nitrous rapidly boils to a gas. The energy released during this phase causes the temperature of the nitrous gas to drop. This in turn cools the inlet charge, causing the oxygen molecules in the air to become denser. Dense air will allow the fuel to burn hotter, which in turn also adds to greater power.

So it follows that; Nitrous is injected into the inlet manifold, where it cools the inlet air making it denser. The fuel-air mixture proceeds to the cylinder where it is compressed and ignited. The extra oxygen released causes the charge to burn even hotter. The nitrogen released also dampens the sudden increase in cylinder pressure, allowing the piston to retract down the cylinder smoothly but quickly.
Installations Tips:

The nitrous bottle is usually stored at the opposite end of the car to the engine, which usually means the boot. This is to reduce the risk of the nitrous bottle coming into contact with a source of fire.

The bottle must be stored with the valve end higher than the bottom of the bottle. This is to allow a smooth flow of the liquid nitrous to the engine. As the liquid is under pressure, it will pump itself to the inlet manifold.

NOS systems recommends a 15° tilt towards the front of the car when installing one of their kits. The inlet manifold must be modified to include jets for the nitrous and extra fuel to enter in through. The flow of nitrous and fuel through the jets is usually controlled with a solenoid, which means that you either have nitrous and extra fuel being injected or not, at any one time. It is possible to use a progressive controller that will allow the rate of flow of nitrous to be increased from zero to full, as the throttle is applied. When using a solenoid, the correct way of activating flow is to use the signal coming from the full throttle switch. This ensures that the nitrous kicks in only under full throttle conditions, any other time could cause serious traction problems!

To improve things further, nitrous should only be used from second gear onwards.
Additional information:

Firstly, nitrous oxide is not flammable on its own. In fact, if the bottle leaked for any reason, the thing you should worry about is getting anaesthetized while driving (N2O is commonly called ‘laughing gas’, a general anesthetic in the medical industry). It’s the oxygen releasing property that makes nitrous quite dangerous when exposed to a flammable material. If, in the event of an accident, the nitrous bottle burst you should still evacuate your car just in case a fire was to break out somewhere else.

Secondly, it is a common train of thought that the bottle should be shielded from all sources of heat. This should not be the case. If the bottle of nitrous gets too cold (this will happen as some nitrous boils in the bottle), the pressure drops considerably causing the fuel-air mixture (which should be deliberately over-rich to compensate for added oxygen) to be too lean for the engine, resulting in power loss. The nitrous bottle should be lagged to keep the temperature of the liquid at around 25°C (just over room temperature).
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