Pure Oxygen

C

Combustion

37
An engine works by mixing air and fuel and combusting right?

But the active part of the air is the oxygen, which is about 20% of air. So wouldn't pumping pure oxygen into an engine make it produce (theoretically) 5 times the power!? NOS is basically the same concept, but why not just pump pure oxygen? Is it that oxygen is too unstable?

Anyone got an idea?
 
If you try this I suggest you stand way the hell back. I also suggest you have the money for a rebuild.
 
Tried it on a 1973 Ski-doo TNT 340... has about the same effect as spraying ether directly into the carburator....hand on an hope it doesn't blow.....
 
The first thing would be the difficulty of getting the volume of O2 necessary into the engine. A good basic high-performance carburetor is the Holley 650 4-barrell. That "650" stands for 650 cubic feet of air intake per minute. That's a lot of volume to try to store in the car some way.

Next, of course, you'd have to address the issue of getting 500% more fuel delivery to stop the engine from going lean. Leaning out melts pistons. Bad.

Then, consider this story: a guy named George Goebel used to be in charge of cooking at his company picnic. He was always tired of waiting for the charcoal to get ready, so he did some experimenting. Luckily, he was a chemist, so he knew what he was doing. They went to the park with the food, 60 lbs of charcoal, a pack of cigarettes, and about a pint of LOX - liquid oxygen. Oh, yeah, and a really long pole. They banked all 60 lbs of charcoal in one of those big steel barbecues some public parks have, and set a lit cigarette on top. Then they put the LOX container on the end of the pole, and poured it over the cigarette.

WHOOMP.

3 seconds later, the charcoal was ready - the little bit that was left. Well over 50 lbs of charcoal briquettes were vaporized in 3 seconds. Unfortunately, so was the cast iron grating over the barbecue.
 
The problem with pure oxygen is heat, leading to uncontrollable detonation or pre-ignition. Heat builds up too quickly during compression without any nitrogen to soak and carry it away. You end up with a runaway heat problem, leading to catastrophic detonation. BOOM.

The nice thing about N20 is that it releases oxygen and nitrogen in a controllable manner at a controllable temperature.. about 565 degrees F. It also cools as it breaks down, helping prevent detonation and assiting in controlable ignition.


M
 
Also most engines are perfectly balanced for the air that is present in our atmosphere. Even if you tamper with it a little bit I.E mix up to mixture then it will stall so it is inpractial for street cars. N20 just changes the percentage but keeps the ratio.
 

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