Drg84:

Nineteen is a great age but with a lot of important things to sort out. I recall daydreaming a lot about sectioning a '50 Ford shoebox and how I might do it at age 19, but now I know that would have been an overwhelming project for a first attempt. Still such ideas can stay with you for a lifetime when one has the "car hobby sickness". One thing I should have mentioned above is that since the NOS gas nitrous oxide gas has the formula NNO even if you forced the intake to breathe in only 100% NNO you would in effect be increasing the oxygen content to 50% compared to the usual 19% in air and of course that would be a very "heavy load" of nitrous oxide, far more than is usually used. Then if one used an intake which only had pure oxygen from something like a fast flow oxygen tent the intake gas would be 100% oxygen so this would exceed the conditions from the maximum amount of oxygen from pure NNO. In a practical sense the new way would only be used if someone actually used it successfully as when the first Chrysler hemi engines were used in spite of their higher weight at a time when OHV engines were beginning to dominate traditional Ford flatheads. At that time it was not clear whether Olds, Chevy or even Ford Y-block engines would be the new technology in the late '50s. Of course if HEADS actually built an "oxygen engine" and started to win, there would be a lot of folks copying the idea. Another thing to think about is that U.S. Armed Service Research Labs are always looking for compounds containing C, H, N and O which lead as directly as possible to CO2, H2O and minimal amounts of NOx. The formulas of most explosive compounds often have ratios of atoms close to these products. Nitromethane is in that sense a form of liquid dynamite when used as a fuel additive. Anyway I will focus for now on completing my low rpm torque motor but I wil try to answer chemical questions when I can in return for excellent technical comments from experienced mechanics, particularly for SBC.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder