# Medical Nitrous



## Xorti7 (Dec 27, 2004)

I have access to medical Nitrous Oxide. I just wanted to know what the difference is and if this could be used for our purposes.

I also wanted to know the effects of Nitrous with a turbocharged motor. I've heard either way.


----------



## psuLemon (Apr 23, 2003)

i can answer the second question. Usually when you put nitrous and turbo together without a built bottom end, it goes boom.

where is ishadoff when you need him


----------



## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

i heard medical nitrous is better because it contains less sulfur


----------



## thestunts200sx (Jul 11, 2005)

NotAnotherHonda said:


> i heard medical nitrous is better because it contains less sulfur


Interesting , learn something new everyday, well for me, its like every second really....

Why dont they use medical nitrious then ???


----------



## bahearn (Jul 15, 2002)

Nitrous oxide is a federally regulated intoxicant.

Industrial nitrous oxide contains a mercaptan (sulfur containing compound related to skunk odor) to make it nauseous so Joe Blow won't abuse it. It doesn't take much so it'll do little harm to a catalytic converter.

Medical nitrous has no odorant but it is strictly controlled. If you can't show a medical reason to buy it, you won't get it from a gas vendor. You probably won't sneak nitrous from a medical source more than once before they discover your theft.


----------



## BII (May 13, 2004)

Medical Nitrous is pure, but the industrial grade contains so little Nitrous that the effect on automotive applications is neglible (IIRC, its 100 ppm of that sulfur stuff).

Save the medical stuff for "other" uses (like dentistry, for example).

As fa as turbo charged cars, depends on the engine and the parts. It is similar to adding more boost, in that you have to take similar percautions (enough fuel, timing retard, etc.)

If you have an air-to-air intercooler, a nitrous intercooler sprayer is great, it chills the air going through the intercooler by spraying nitrous over it.


----------



## bahearn (Jul 15, 2002)

*BII* meant industrial grade *nitrous* contains so little *mercaptan* that the effect on automotive applications is neglible...


----------



## Chuck (Nov 19, 2003)

lol, have you ever used medical nitrous oxide.. i did at the dentist.. and i didnt notice it was cold at all .. besides, it would be more expensive for medical nitrous..


----------



## bahearn (Jul 15, 2002)

Well, duh. No doctor is his right mind is gonna have your lawyers sue him because he didn't warm the gas after it came out of the bottle and it froze the hair out of your nostrils.

Gas expansion cause a reduction in temperature. No exceptions. Place the high-pressure source just in front of your intercooler. Open the valve and the large pressure drop causes a large temperature drop of the nitrous. I mean, gee, that's how air conditioning works.

And, you mispelled "amateur" in your avatar


----------



## Xorti7 (Dec 27, 2004)

What if i just wanted to use pure oxygen? Not that I would actually try this, but for theory sake, wouldn't this be more effective? Btw i have access to this stuff because I sell it everyday.. I wouldnt just take it.


----------



## asleepz (Feb 24, 2004)

Xorti7 said:


> What if i just wanted to use pure oxygen? Not that I would actually try this, but for theory sake, wouldn't this be more effective? Btw i have access to this stuff because I sell it everyday.. I wouldnt just take it.



More effective for blowing yourself up?

Of course!


----------



## Xorti7 (Dec 27, 2004)

asleepz said:


> More effective for blowing yourself up?
> 
> Of course!


I just thought more oxygen the better, but apparently not.


----------



## asleepz (Feb 24, 2004)

yes you'd make tons more power... For about 2 nanoseconds... Then your engine will be either many seperated pieces of metal or one big blob.


----------



## muchachomaloo (Aug 24, 2005)

Yeah If i remmember correctly of medical nitrous it isn't under stat much pressure. Pure oxygen would give you better power if you had it in like a scuba tank. Like he said boyle's law i believe. But the medical nitrous mikght not be stored under the same pressure as the racing stuff. 

Try mixing nitroglycerin into you gasoline it is more combustable meaning more power 

Seriously though unless you don't like having a motor don't go cheap on it when dealing with the combustable side of things.


----------



## bahearn (Jul 15, 2002)

Y'all need to add context to your messages. One minute we're talking nirous injection, next it's about blowing nitrous over an intercooler. Somewhere along the way we're back to injection of a gas but I had to guess.

Pure oxygen would be the dog's danglies. Roughly five times as many oxygen molecules as compared to air for a given intake mass and no nitrogen to form NOx. You'd could make HUGE torque at ridiculously low rpm.

Of course, the engine wouldn't hold together if you merely substituted O2 for air and made the requisite fuel changes. You'd have to greatly restrict O2 intake to something approaching normal O2 mass drawn from air. No NOx, though, so EGR can be tossed as well as the NOx portion of the catalytic convertyer.

Now for the REALLY bad news: Pure oxygen causes pretty much spontaneous combustion in any organic compound, or nearly so. We run pure oxygen to some of our gas chromatographs and when the system was first installed, an outside switching valve wasn't properly cleaned of lubricant and the damned thing exploded from the inside when the grease caught on fire upon contact with the oxygen. The valve body (a solid chunk of 304 stainless) looked like someone had taken a cutting torch to the insides. Every engine operating on pure O2 would require operating room cleanliness at all times. Throw away all your paper gaskets and rubber o-rings, too.

Some pretty serious safety precautions are taken in the Armed Forces and NASA when dealing with pure oxygen.


----------



## muchachomaloo (Aug 24, 2005)

Oh yeah I remembered something else about o2 it is rocket fuel. Not to mention toxic. Seriously bad stuff stay away from it as much as possible. A lot of the times you hear about rockets and spaceships blowing it it is the liquid oxygen that seals the deal. If anything went wrong with the tank you could be fucked very bad and very hard. Paint ball guns use compressed air at 4500psi you cannot take one on a flight you have to have it degassed and such. There isn't enough precautions you can take when trying to incorparate it into an automobile. It would be a lot more cost effective to knuckle up and pay for your nitrous the way everybody else does. But personally i think nitrous is way over-rated.


----------



## bahearn (Jul 15, 2002)

Paintball guns don't use compressed oxygen, they use compressed air. Totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Otherwise, yeah, not something to trifle with. A story from the X-15 days, one of the LOX (Liquid OXygen) fillers stepped away (very far away) from the aircraft to have a smoke. His clothing had trapped some vapors from a small LOX spill and he went up in a blaze when he sparked his lighter.


----------



## muchachomaloo (Aug 24, 2005)

bahearn said:


> Paintball guns don't use compressed oxygen, they use compressed air. Totally irrelevant to the discussion.[\QUOTE]
> 
> Not really the tanks are very similar and although the purity is different is it essintally the same. Granted not nearly as dangerous.


----------



## Kgizzle1 (Oct 14, 2005)

pure oxygen would be the best power adder. it would add roughly 3X more power than adding nitrous. gasoline is reacting with oxygen ONLY. nitrous adds power because it has more oxygen density than air. if you used pure oxygen you would need five times the amount of fuel to compensate, being that air is roughly 20% oxygen. so now i want everyone to go out a buy some toulene or nitromethenol and start running their cars with direct oxygen foggers!!!!!!


----------



## alexnds (Oct 1, 2005)

*Combining Nitrous with Turbo Charging*



Xorti7 said:


> I just thought more oxygen the better, but apparently not.


1. How much power are you trying to make? for what purpose?
2. Are you looking to make over 1000 HP for drag racing?
3. Can your car put that much power to the ground even if you could generate that kind of power? 
4. Do you have a roll cage?
5. Do you desire death and injury?

There is a big, big difference between being a motoring enthusiast and being plain silly and stupid. You realize that regular air we breathe has Nitrogen and Oxygen in it. However, Nitrous Oxide is not regular air. The 2 parts of nitrogen is an inert gas, that has a cooling effect on the extra oxygen that makes up N20 it separates from the Nitrogen in being introduced into the high heat of the combustion chamber.

Go back to your chemistry books and look up Boyle's Law. It's basically, Pressure is inversely proportinal to Volume. So as pressure climbs, volume drops and vice versa. Temperature is directly proportional, not inversely propostional. That means, as pressure builds, temperature builds as well.

If you are interested in a superpowerful motor, and not into killing yourself in the process, you will need to pay $25,000 for a drag racing motor that can run pure hydrogen, not gasoline. However, that motor has been purpose built to use methomalamane and hydrogen and has special carbeuration for that gas, rather than gasonline. Remember, gasoline is called "gas" but it's really a liquid. The fuel injection system makes it a fine mist spray, that mixed with air makes it "gaseous'. In the case of Nitrous Oxide, or Hydrogen for that matter, you're dealing with a substance that is already in a gaseous state.

My advice: you sound very young and inexperienced about basic principle of how an engine works. No offense meant. Read some physics books. Read some chemistry books. Read more about internal combustion engines and then post here. If you are really serious about doing what you're describing in some of your posts, you will get SERIOUSLY hurt and possibly DIE.

Stay away from play with pure Oxygen and gasoline motor. Be safe and may God bless you and take care of you.


----------



## BII (May 13, 2004)

Kgizzle1 said:


> pure oxygen would be the best power adder. it would add roughly 3X more power than adding nitrous.


NO!!!!! You need stoichiometric balance to achieve more power. Adding more oxygen would mean adding more fuel as well, and with pure oxygen, you'd need to do it in a hurry. Moreover, even if you could add the appropiate amount of oxygen, you'd need internals that could handle the tremendous amount of pressure caused by this. You know who uses pure oxygen to create combustion? NASA and the Navy.




Kgizzle1 said:


> if you used pure oxygen you would need five times the amount of fuel to compensate, being that air is roughly 20% oxygen. so now i want everyone to go out a buy some toulene or nitromethenol and start running their cars with direct oxygen foggers!!!!!!


I hope you're kidding.


----------



## Xorti7 (Dec 27, 2004)

alexnds said:


> 1. How much power are you trying to make? for what purpose?
> 2. Are you looking to make over 1000 HP for drag racing?
> 3. Can your car put that much power to the ground even if you could generate that kind of power?
> 4. Do you have a roll cage?
> ...


I understand that there is no way in hell I would actually try this. Im puttin about 300 to the ground, trying to break into the 12's, and N2o is looking pretty appealing at the moment. 

The way I rationalized it in my head is N2o is 2 parts nitrous and 1 part oxygen. If you use a very small amount of oxygen to increase the Oxygen ratio in normal air you could have a simalar effect, just without the same cooling effect of the expanding gas.

I just wanted to know if in theory this would work. Since I might as well just use N2O, it being cheaper and easier, I would just go with that route. I am just bored at work and my mind wanders. I fully understand now that it would be a bad idea. Thanks for all of the interesting information though; Im just always trying to better understand the actual physics of how it all comes together.


----------



## golfer17 (Oct 18, 2005)

to answer your other question about if nitrous is a good route to go, yes.

nitrous is a great power adder for drag racing and any kind of straight line racing that is short lived. nitrous is especially good with boost. the cooling effect of nitrous goes very well with forced induction, and the reduced temps will give you much more hp than normal. boosted cars will normally make say 70+ whp on a 70 shot of nitrous because of the reduced intake temps and will spool up a turbo much quicker than normal. i think a small shot of nitrous is a very good idea for the track (or street) to get that extra little boost to beat that vette or something, while still keeping reliability in tact for every day driving. you can have a very quick streetable car that spools quickly and then use nitrous for that extra boost whenever you need it to beat someone. outside of street/drag racing though, its useless imo.


----------



## Kgizzle1 (Oct 14, 2005)

you could easily run with pure oxegyn in stoichmetric balance. its the same as using forced induction. if oxygen is roughly 5X more oxygen dense than natural air. you could even run it on pure nitrous oxide in stoic balance



BII said:


> I hope you're kidding.


 yes.

you could run with pure oxegyn in stoichmetric balance you would just need adequate fuel. its the same as using forced induction. if oxygen is roughly 5X more oxygen dense than natural air. you could even run it on pure nitrous oxide in stoic balance


----------



## bahearn (Jul 15, 2002)

5 times more oxygen CONCENTRATION (not density) plus 5 times more fuel (to maintain stoichiometry) = 5 times more combustion pressure. This usually = an intimate meeting between you and your number three rod big end and the new inspection port in the side of the block.


----------



## captain_shrapnel (Sep 10, 2004)

And of course oxygen is an oxydizer (duh), so there fould be that whole pesky problem with burning through the pistons... think oxyacetylene torch. Ferrous metal burns with enough oxygen in its presence, this is why n20 is used and not pure o2. To keep the engine internals from being burned up. They make fogger kits that will support over a 500 hp shot, why even think about using pure o2?


----------



## BII (May 13, 2004)

Kgizzle1 said:


> you could easily run with pure oxegyn in stoichmetric balance. its the same as using forced induction. if oxygen is roughly 5X more oxygen dense than natural air. you could even run it on pure nitrous oxide in stoic balance
> 
> yes.
> 
> you could run with pure oxegyn in stoichmetric balance you would just need adequate fuel. its the same as using forced induction. if oxygen is roughly 5X more oxygen dense than natural air. you could even run it on pure nitrous oxide in stoic balance


You address the first part of my post, stoichmetry, but that still leaves the question of the vessel of combustion itsself. Engines would simply not be up to task to handle the tremendous pressure (and related heat) created by this reaction.

This is partly why nitrous is so great. Those extra 2 nitrogen molecules acts as a sort of stabilizer, containing combustion and preventing detonation, i.e., grenading your pistons.

I suppose if you could build an engine made of something strong enough (literally something made of space-age technology, a ceramic perhaps), then yes you could run something like what you are proposing.


----------



## captain_shrapnel (Sep 10, 2004)

BII said:


> I suppose if you could build an engine made of something strong enough (literally something made of space-age technology, a ceramic perhaps), then yes you could run something like what you are proposing.


Actually, there is NO known material that is capable of standing up to even a relatively few hits with the kind of pressure oxygen/gasolene generates. I understand what you are saying, but at this time nothing actually does exist.


----------

