using nitrous successfully?

D

doormeister

58
When I hit the boost for the nitrous on my Vette, the motor just redlines and the wheels must be spinning. What am I doing wrong? I set the nitrous as low as possible - 10 - and even just tapping the boost in 5th or 6th gear spins the wheels. Is this just to be used at 190 mph or above? The motor has about 620 hp right now. This is my first post, btw. Awesome game. I'm hooked...
 
Nitrous is best used when you've got the vette completly tuned. The necessaries are a full custom tranny set to a fairly wide(14 with a final of about 3.5-4 should do) and the Nitrous set to full power(50 for most American cars). Nitrous can be used at any time during a race with no harm to the car, obviously.

Of course you could always just turn up the TCS... or do what many people do, don't use Nitrous. The game SAYS it adds 50-100 HP, it really adds about 2X more acceleration to your car at max setting. At the lowest setting, the nitrous should have little if any affect on the car. And heres a tip that voids everything else I wrote. Above all else, NEVER use nitrous on an American car... it's like beer and ice cream, it just doesn't mix.
 
Press 'o' briefly or hold it down? Sounds like it may have worked for me if the TCS was turned all the way up. Even with the LSD, its going to slip that bad?! I only had it set on ten... I'll try it tommorrow.
 
using nos is like a boost to your car and engine. when u stated that by pressing the nos button and u redline and ur tires slip, what is happening is that theres not enough weight in the back of the car (if its an mr/mr) car and vice versa. nos is a huge boost, depending on ur setting (0-100). I can see 2 things that can help you, one is to increase some weight to the back of the car, or simply decrease ur nos setting, ie: if from 100, try 75, etc
 
darkwind
Above all else, NEVER use nitrous on an American car... it's like beer and ice cream, it just doesn't mix.
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👎
I think most Pro-Mod car owners will disagree with you here.
Dave%20Persico%20spraying%20the%20nitrous%20big%20time.%20Photo%20by%20Drag%20Racing%20Memories.jpg
 
CombatWombat
👎
I think most Pro-Mod car owners will disagree with you here.
Dave%20Persico%20spraying%20the%20nitrous%20big%20time.%20Photo%20by%20Drag%20Racing%20Memories.jpg
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Theres a big difference between pro-mod and a vette(or any other street legal car). In reality, the engine on a street legal car would probably be shot if you used the nos at to high of a setting on a street engine, think a high powered NOS on a Ford 'nuff said. But hey, some people do like beer with their ice cream.

NOS works in a sequence close to this: NitrousOxide* is pushed into the engine, primarily, to the pistons. This provides a fuel < air mixture. Engines with fuel injectors adjust to this change and allow more fuel to enter the pistons. By using more fuel and more O2**, when the piston compresses the fuel-air mixture and the mixture combusts, the piston is forced down much faster than a standard fuel-air mix, which provides your boost in the engine. This means that the higher the setting, the more force thats being applied to your pistons and the more strain thats put on your engine.

*NO2, NOS, or Nitrous
**Oxygen is the primary component of NOS, and for those that didn't know, Oxygen provides greater combustion and heat to a fire.

Disclaimer: I am not a mechanic, pro-mod, street racer or anything else that nows how an engine and or NOS works to the exact detail. If your lucky, I might be able to point out your engine, but good luck with me telling you what it does.
 
so to sum up, nitrous carries oxygen, more gas more air more boom. by the way nos is kind of a buzz word created by the fast and the furious, in reality it is a brand.
 
darkwind
Theres a big difference between pro-mod and a vette(or any other street legal car). In reality, the engine on a street legal car would probably be shot if you used the nos at to high of a setting on a street engine, think a high powered NOS on a Ford 'nuff said. But hey, some people do like beer with their ice cream.
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This is just silly. The last time I was at the track a guy had a Z06 with a rather large shot of nitrous and drag radials. It ran 9's. It was still an LS1 under the hood.
The mustang aftermarket has many many...many....nitrous kits. Hell, even for the 3.8L V6 if you wanted it.
To say NOS does not belong on an American car is downright crazy. The FAST & THE FURIOUS did not invent nitrous. I'm sure you realize how ridiculously it was depicted there.
 
Ad to the above, very accurate fact, the fact that AMERICAN MUSCLE CAR draggersand street racers in the glory days of the pony cars virtually invented the use of nitrous as a power boost, and I think your theory goes right out the window.
Nitrous will pooch any engine if not used in correct mixture. Many cars have suffered a fiery death due to the overuseage of nitrous. This was the main reason that for many years it was illegal to run a nitrous bottle in a street vehicle. I was quite surprised to see that it was legal again when it started appearing in the new generation street racers to tell the truth.
 
CombatWombat
To say NOS does not belong on an American car is downright crazy. The FAST & THE FURIOUS did not invent nitrous. I'm sure you realize how ridiculously it was depicted there.
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<sarcasm> Really? They didn't?! :nervous: It's the end of the world! </sarcasm>

DarkKni9hT
Nitrous will pooch any engine if not used in correct mixture. Many cars have suffered a fiery death due to the overuseage of nitrous.
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The above quote pretty much sums up everything I was talking about. I never said that NO2 would completly blow up your engine with the first use. Nitrous is actually a slow death on your car, even when used correctly, if parts aren't maintained.

I actually find it disturbing that NO2 is still legal to use because of all the people that saw FAST & THE FURIOUS and thought they were car geniuses. Like I said before. I might be able to point out your engine, but I wouldn't know how to start working on it. The extent of my knowledge about tuning and modding cars stops at Gran Turismo.

However, this bickering isn't helping to answer doormeister's question. If you wish to continue pointing out everything imperfect about my opinions* keep them to yourselves.

*Opinion: A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof.(I.E. I may be wrong, but it's my choice to believe it's right for me.)
 
darkwind
<sarcasm>
The above quote pretty much sums up everything I was talking about. I never said that NO2 would completly blow up your engine with the first use. Nitrous is actually a slow death on your car, even when used correctly, if parts aren't maintained.
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It's no different from boost from a supercharger/turbocharger so long as it is used with a level head. More oxygen is more oxygen. Either its wedged in with a compressor, or squirted in. You need more fuel and less timing either way.

Ad to the above, very accurate fact, the fact that AMERICAN MUSCLE CAR draggersand street racers in the glory days of the pony cars virtually invented the use of nitrous as a power boost,
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I'm sure someone can just google "first use of nitrous" and get a definitive answer...but off the top of my head it was by the germans in their WW2 fighter aircraft as an emergency power boost.

As for the posters original question...it seems odd that it would suddenly spin the tires even with it set on the lowest setting. I'm still not convinced what the actual units of the setting are. All of the units in the tuning garage range from vague to non-existant.
 
Nos is bets used around 2nd to 3rd gear(depending on the car). I hate the people think that using nos at 1st gear makes sence.Around 1sr gear you have to let the engine take care of the push launch.
 
I've used nitrous in a 0-400 run in which I used the NO2 from start to finish. I actually had a better time than waiting to use the nitrous.

Nitrous is best used at a high setting and only when you need a boost of speed, such as to pass a car travelling at an equal speed or accelerate out of a turn after goofing it.
 
Are we talking real world or GT4?

Real world: Nitrous, as mentioned above, allows more power per stroke because a naturally asperated engine has only the amount of oxygen the piston can draw in through the intake tract, you can easily increase the fuel proportion, nitrous allows you to increase the oxygen proportion. It also causes intense detonation, a condition that is devastating to wrist pins and connecting rod bearings; it also heavily scores the cylinder bores. Nitrous injected and turbo charged engines often feature reverse domed pistons, these serve two purposes: they reduce detonation by lowering compression, and they reduce detonation by supporting a hemispherical combustion chamber (Dodge Hemi sound familiar? Its done with tilted valves and domed cylinder heads) which encourages the flame front to travel evenly and SMOOTHLY through the fuel/air mix (similar to what lead additives did a generation ago). It makes sense to save nitrous for higher RPM's only because the increased rotational speed "tends" to mitigate the impact loads on the bearing surfaces, which MAY increase engine life.

GT4: Nitrous, as mentioned above, allows acceleration equivalent to 50 to 100 hp. It does not increase engine wear and there is no reason to save it for higher rpm. If you set your tcs to a sufficiently low number (I usually use 3), it will only engage when the wheels would spin, and, because this is GT4, onboard nitrous will not diminish until you use it, which means you cannot dispense it at any engine speed if the wheels are not turning, so you can only expire as much as tcs will allow the car to accelerate.
Try this test: lock your brakes, rev the engine and shoot nitrous, the red bar will not diminish until you start moving.
Sorry if this debunks any superlatives.
 
Tuning. That's the name of the game with proper horsepower for any application. You want nitrous? Tune your motor. You want a turbocharger? Tune your motor. You want a supercharger? Tune your motor. That's the bottom line.
Nitrous can be added to any motor. I'm sure we've all seen the gas-powered scooter with nitrous beat the Trans Am, right? Ridden by a 12-year old kid. You could probably add nitrous to your mower if it was "tuned" right...

Back to GT4. I used nitrous on my 1971 240ZG to beat the Japanese 70's cars. I'd use it to get up to speed, then shift to higher gears to sustain that speed on the straights. Worked fine.
 
I think all of this discussion is helping to answer the original question.
Doesn't sound like bickering to me.
The questioner, as I have, has probably learned a lot about the use of Nitrous by reading everyone's debate and opinion, conflicting as they may be.

I've often used nitrous right at the start of standing-start races to keep the rest of the field from leaving me in the dust.
Especially with older cars that don't have so many gears.
(you're probably saying, 'buy a gearbox')

I mostly use it on really straight stretches.
This is for a couple of reasons.

First the car hurtles forward with seemingly wreckless abandon when the boost is being applied.

Second because it's harder to steer while holding down the Nitrous button. (in GT)
This is doubly true when using MT.
Man, is it hard to use Nitrous in an MT car (in GT) (for the likes of me, at least)

I haven't used Nitrous on such an already powerful car.
I mostly used it on cars with good handling but less than 200hp,
like a Lotus Europa.
So there is a limit (many really) to the advice I can offer.

Do you have a wing on your vette?
Downforce could help tame that thing, I think.
Though, aesthetics could also be a consideration...

Even with these low powered cars I see the tach rocketing through the redline
and get a lot of wheel spin.
The car STILL GOES FASTER though, so I just grit my teeth and hold on.

I've tried using nitrous on dirt tracks too.
This is really scary
and you end up having to break so much sooner for the turn
that I debate with myself about its usefulness.

This is my experience.

Here's some other good information you may have already found.
Scroll down to the 3rd post.
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=56645
 
Nitrous can be successfully used on any car. However, it works better on small engined cars, prefferably less than an 8. Hence, Nos being used on Japanese tuner cars. The main benefit of Nos is acceleration, which is why it is used in drag races. To successfully utilise Nitrous, you should aim to hit it at high revs in gear 5 or 6, because this is when the pistons are moving fastest, and they will respond better to the increased pressure, reducing engine wear. Also you get a better speed boost. The main problem with big engined cars is that they already have alot of power, and the nitrous boost into too many cylinders at once gives you wheelspin. However, I have never had a problem with nitrous giving me wheelspin.
 
Supercar_Killer
Nitrous can be successfully used on any car. However, it works better on small engined cars, prefferably less than an 8.
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I'm trying hard to not turn this into an automotive argument thread, but this statement has no basis in reality.
Looking at this logically...
If a 350ci V8 is making 300hp on 14.7psi of air...
and a 130ci I4 is making 100hp on 14.7 psi of air...
If you add 15psi of boost pressure to each, which do you think will get more benefit, if all else remains constant?

In a perfect world the V8 will goto 600hp and the I4 to 200hp. Real life complicatins mean its not that simple, but its a safe bet that an engine making more power in naturally aspirated form will benefit more from boost pressure.

Nitrous is boost in a bottle for all intents and purposes.

As a general rule when dealing with power, bigger is better. I remember reading an article on a diesel generator engine that was the size of a small warehouse and it made something like 100,000 bhp at a blistering 1000rpm. Lawn mower engines are small and make upwards of 20hp. Its a safe bet to pull some linear interpolation inbetween and show that for the same cost/effort, bigger will give you more.
 

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