Nitrous Experience Anyone....Anyone???

Hey Gang - Looking for some opinions on putting a nitrous set-up on my 1977 Kz650/810. The complete kit is gonna set me back about $1200 delivered to my door.

I have a few concerns (aside from my itchy trigger finger) and I would like to hear from fellow members that have Kz NO2 experience. Anyone out there in Kzr land have some experience on hooking laughing gas to a mid-size runnner?

What should I watch for as far as reliability, durability?
What kind of HP increase should be reasonable?
How tough is the install?

The motor is an 810 with 10.25 Wiseco pistons, 2000 miles on Kz750 block and pistons. 650 head, milled 9 thou, ported and polished, Gpz intake valves, stock Kz750 exhaust valves, Kz750 cams, Wired George Mikuni 29 smoothbores and Dyna coils/electronic ignition. Factory cam chain and stock bottom end. There is not a lot more tweaking I can do to this motor to squeeze out more power and this is a nice $ to HP ratio. I am not interested in a turbo setup as I want to keep the bike stock looking.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada

bigger cams wont cut it eh? Who's wet system are you using? 20-30hp shot? if its a kit it shouldn't be that hard to install. I helped my uncle put a fogger kit on his drag vette, what took the most time was hooking up all the electronics and getting the right length hoses. you will probably need to get another ignition system to retard the timing when you hit the NOS if it isn't part of the kit.
I'm going with a 40hp dry kit on my ZX12R for this summer,(haven't decided on who's kit yet, see post on the dragbike.com forum for details) so I'm getting off easy in the nitrous installation department ah, the beauty of EFI
Scott

First of all, if you haven't already switched to a Pingle high flow petcock, you'll want to.

Check out www.diy-nitrous.fsnet.co.uk/
I don't recommend actually building a "do-it-yourself" type system like burgerman describes... but he has a LOT of good, accurate info and it's good reading for anyone considering installing nitrous on ANYTHING.

Next you should check out the systems and message-board on this site:
www.racetested.com
Their stuff is spendy, and probably more complex than you want to go, but again, it's good info/reference.

Last, check
www.coldfusionnitrous.com
They sell components that are identical to the stuff with the "NOS" label on it, at about 2/3 of the cost.

You could also investigate "adiabatic cooling" if you're a thermodynamics-geek, but the short version of that story is that you need at least a 20oz bottle even for just a small-shot - any smaller and adiabatic cooling kills the pressure in the system.

As far as reliability, as long as you stick with a small shot (30hp or so) then it'll be fine. Nitrous is violent, the forged pistons are a good thing. You may want to retard the ignition-timing... but that shouldn't be necessary for shots smaller than 50hp. The limiting factor is going to be the same as with any other method of adding power: rods, crank, clutch, transmission. If you decide to go for more than 50hp you should consider stainless valves and a progressive controller. Check out the Schnitz Pro Street II controller. It has the ignition, rev limiter (2-step), shift kill, shift counter, shift light, RPM window switch, progressive control, and ignition retard - all those functions in a single unit.

There's a practical limit for how much nitrous you can actually get INTO a motor though - and that's based mostly on the displacement, and also on the cam-timing. It begins to become impossible to use more nitrous after you get to the point where you double the output of the motor.

You should also make sure your charging system is up to snuff. The fuel pump will draw 5 amps, the solenoids 3 amps. The fuel pump and regulator are the most important parts of the system.

Up to 30hp it's fairly simple & straightforward. Once you get over 50hp, you enter another realm and the rules change. It gets expensive to do it right, and it gets VERY expensive if you make a mistake!

Something else: use an adjustable Hobbes switch on the fuel-side of the nitrous system so that if the fuel-pressure drops suddenly, it will open the circuit that energizes the solenoids and stop injecting nitrous. Nitrous injected sans fuel will still burn... but when it runs out of fuel to burn, it will start burning other things - like valves, pistons, etc.

Seems like an awful lot of money for the kit, even in Canada.
aperaceparts.com/nos.html

Jay

Good advice from Guitargeek. The problem with 30hp is you can barely feel it. You will want a 50 shot, trust me. Use good fuel and set it up on a dyno nice and rich (11:1) on the gas. You will probably need some heavy clutch springs from Kibblewhite. If you get a taste for it consider some 750 turbo 810 pistons (8:1) and rods. How much is the gas per pound in your area?

wouldn't turbo pistons really kill hp when hes off the juice? I cant see anyone running it constantly on a street bike, if it was strictly a drag bike then that's another storey...
its 6-7$/lb in ontario isnt it?

Haven't gotten that far along the idea to check out gas pricing and local availability yet. I have a few other issues that I want to sort out first liek the $ vs. HP return. I am probably going to talk to a Kz racer/mechanic friend of mine who put the bottle on his 650 last summer and get his input.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada

I think a 30-35 hp shot would be quite noticable, thats about what the change would have been going from stock to where it is now. they only came with 64hp from the factory:P

Colin, did you get anything yet? you might want to check this kit out, its $559

A complete kit including fuel pump and everything you need. These kits are great for folks looking to add more HP to thier bike. The kit uses quality parts like braided lines, not plastic, stainless high flow solenoids, Nozzle mounts to mount the wet nozzle in rubber or plastic. We even give a tap so you can mount the nozzles in metal! Note: The kit comes with a 1.25LB bottle but you can upgrade to the 2.5LB bottle.
Comes with 36hp and 60hp jets.

link to dynotune nitrous

many years ago, a bud had a fj1100, with a 1300 kit, ported head, and a wow button, after a couple of cold ones( warning dont do that ) I took it out for a spin, 5th gear bout 70mph, I hit the button, I was looking at the stars leaning over the front of the bike as much as I could, saying PLEASE LORD LET IT COME BACK DOWN i PROMISE I WILL NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN!!!!

i am enjoying this thread.

thank you for feeding my little HP demanding monster inside of me.