Nitrous Outlet plate and DIY standalone on 5th gen
05-13-2012, 12:32 PM
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Nitrous Outlet plate and DIY standalone on 5th gen Thought I'd post some pics of the nitrous system I've been putting together, especially since the car is out of commission for awhile LOL
First off, big thanks to Ryan at SS Performance in Tallahassee. He's been very generous with his time and knowledge and even let me swap out a bad Holley Blue, on the spot, so we could continue dyno (Mustang) tuning the car.
A big thanks also to Chris at Nitrous Outlet as well. I feel I've pestered him a bit as well and would like to thank him for his help.
Summary of NA, 100, and 150 shots on Mustang dyno:
NA with AFR
150 shot with AFR
System as it sits today (Nitrous Outlet plate, solenoids, and bottles, Nano 3000, RCI 1 gallon cell to Holley Blue to Russell filter, distribution block with Moroso gauge to t-fitting at fuel solenoid, then to Aeromotive 13301 regulator with low pressure spring, and finally bypassing back into RCI cell vented to a small K&N breather filter deep in the wheel well next to the Holley Blue. Electronics are a simple NOS 15982 window/TPS switch, Lingenfelter LNC-2000 (not currently used), Racetronix universal fuel pump harness, Kenne Bell 40A BAP (NA version), and possibly most importantly, a very reliable RPM signal from an Autometer 9117)
Since the intake is a Vararam, there's very little front-to-back clearance. At one point, the excelllent Vararam customer service had sent me another unit as they think my older unit was/is cracking at the round-to-rectangular transition area. I'm still using that older unit, it's holding up fine. When I tried to 'upgrade' to the better made newer units, well, even trimmed by Vararam for the nitrous plate, there's still not enough clearance:
Left - old, right - new
Additionally, the PCV pipe Vararam inconveniently places in the coupler (really?!) needs to be relocated, at least in my case, so the coupler doesn't bang up against the throttle body and the Vararam. I cut down all the barbs but one on a common 90 degree brass 3/8 barbed fitting, and used an o-ring to capture it.
For bottle mounting, I plagerized a Subthump amplifier board, but added a horizontal mounting surface to it, glued and screwed together with a 1x1 and then carpeted with speaker box material held on with 3M 77 contact spray adhesive. Pretty standard stuff.
Nitrous line is routed thru one of the thru-holes in the right rear fenderwell next to where I mounted the BAP. To clarify what's going up/down thru the fender well holes: -4an nitrous line, Racetronix turn-on pink wire and red power wire, BAP Hobbs switch turn on signal wire (out and back). There is also the Racetronix ground strap from the negative battery post to that ground point above the BAP. I will eventually solder the BAP connections, but as a mechanical engineer I'm naturally distrustful of anything I cannot see or feel, such as electron-hole pairs LOL (it also explains why I am not fully trusting of the Lingenfelter timing box and load new timing tables when running nitrous).
Blow down is via -8an hose to a bulkhead fitting inside the 5th gen's wheel/battery well.
Nitrous feed line and the Racetronix/BAP wires exit downward here, near but outboard of the passenger side muffler. Things are tight with the feed line, but I'm changing that.
And here's a nearby shot showing where the blow down bulkhead fitting exits under the car:
This should give an idea of about where everything is routed underneath the car. Essentially the lines follow the lower subframe and the over to factory fuel line run, then up insided the heatshielded area on the passenger side of the engine compratment. Again, this is changing as I've dropped the rear subframe and fuel tank and will be routing lines overthe rear subframe to both shorten line lengths, remove bends, and isolate from subframe movement/vibration.
Nitrous feed comes up between the fender and the aformentioned heat shield. Notice the much shorter -6an fuel crossover line. Originally I had bought the Nitrous Outlet piece with the Fragola an-to-factory hardline adapters. They pretty much...suck...in my opinion. I gave it the old college try and burned thru 4 of those adapters (2 from the kit, 2 more that I stupidly bought thinking I'd eventually get it right) only to get one end done. Ended up using the new design Russell adapters (p/n 644123) that have a simple screw in capture piece. Notice also, that I bent a hardline for the solenoid to plate feed. Since it's -4an at the solenoid, the whole line had to be -4an. But since the plate is -3an, I had to get a -4male-to-3female adapter.
Fuel side, well, I've never been fond of returnless fuel systems and my particular pump seems to always have been on the weak side. Another 5th gen friend has a BAP for his KB supercharged 5th gen, and he wired his BAP the exact way as mine. Here's what my fuel pressure typically does:
Soooo, I was a little leery of pulling fuel from the rail because of that low all-motor low, in my opinion, fuel pressure. So I put together a standalone fuel system as described at the beginning of this post. Fyi, I bent all the hardlines myself. Hardline everywhere on the chassis side, flexible -an hose from chassis to engine. Btw, I highly, highly recommend the Koul Tools #468 to very easily install -an sleeves onto hoses. Extreme, extreme time saver. Also a simple plier type hose cutter with the circular shaped blades is far better than any fancy hose cutter in my opinion.
Fuel leaves bottom of cell, makes a 180 turn and downward as well, then runs to the front before making another 180 into the Holley Blue fuel pump (lines have since been redone to give more clearance to themselves, the chassis, etc, but this is still the basic setup),
...then it goes back into the engine bay, rising vertically up into the fuel filter, and then into the fuel distribution block.
...and a view of most of the system. One nice feature is that the return line can be disconnected from the cell at the end of the night, and then a coupler and a longer line attached to that bypass line, the other end put in the fuel jug, and then rearming the system to quickly drain the fuel cell.
Currently the car is in phase of 3 of "race car, break car, fix car". Last week I pulled the GForce axles, one of which has a bad CV joint, and am replacing with a new set of DSS axles. Yesterday I dropped the fuel tank and replaced the fuel hat with a ZL1 unit. The following week/month will be spent determining/fixing bad lifter (if the lifters get replaced, then I might as well send the heads off to get ported, right?!). Also currently looking at nitrous friendly cams and of course, all that entails (mainly thinking of new Cloyes adjustable timing gear/chain and a new oil pump).
Before anyone asks for time slips, there are no nitrous time slips yet. On motor I ran 12.2@117 while working to improve some pretty bad 1.9 60's, before breaking a CV joint on an axle back in December. Better driver than me should be able to pull high 11's I'd estimate just on motor. I did run the 100 shot setup at a 1/2-mile event last month (hence the breaking of the 'other' CV joint), but with 3.91 gears, I'm having to spray part of 5th as well, which I'm leery of as well, but supercharged cars run in 5th, so I would think the Tremec is okay with it.
Other items I'm looking to change are to fix the power taper occuring from low to high rpm. I'm 'assuming' getting rid of the bends in the feed line at the rear of the car will change that, and the power increases will be more uniform accross the rpm band. Another is to choose whether to go progressive or dual stage. I had a NX Maximizer 4 on order with Summit, but they finally cancelled the order after failing to deliver since mid-March when originally ordered. Short shifting 1-2 and spinning some of 2nd (with DR's), Need to get that taken care of before spraying more than 100. Any constructive, pragmatic thoughts on that would be appreciated. Also, any similar thoughts on spraying more than 150 would be appreciated as well. I have a couple friends with very lightweight cars that I race, and this heavy 5th gen really needs a bit more spray to be competitive with them. I figure if people can put centrifugals in stock short block 5th gens into the low 700 rwhp range, I 'should' be able to spray my stock short block into the low 700's as well.
First off, big thanks to Ryan at SS Performance in Tallahassee. He's been very generous with his time and knowledge and even let me swap out a bad Holley Blue, on the spot, so we could continue dyno (Mustang) tuning the car.
A big thanks also to Chris at Nitrous Outlet as well. I feel I've pestered him a bit as well and would like to thank him for his help.
Summary of NA, 100, and 150 shots on Mustang dyno:
NA with AFR
150 shot with AFR
System as it sits today (Nitrous Outlet plate, solenoids, and bottles, Nano 3000, RCI 1 gallon cell to Holley Blue to Russell filter, distribution block with Moroso gauge to t-fitting at fuel solenoid, then to Aeromotive 13301 regulator with low pressure spring, and finally bypassing back into RCI cell vented to a small K&N breather filter deep in the wheel well next to the Holley Blue. Electronics are a simple NOS 15982 window/TPS switch, Lingenfelter LNC-2000 (not currently used), Racetronix universal fuel pump harness, Kenne Bell 40A BAP (NA version), and possibly most importantly, a very reliable RPM signal from an Autometer 9117)
Since the intake is a Vararam, there's very little front-to-back clearance. At one point, the excelllent Vararam customer service had sent me another unit as they think my older unit was/is cracking at the round-to-rectangular transition area. I'm still using that older unit, it's holding up fine. When I tried to 'upgrade' to the better made newer units, well, even trimmed by Vararam for the nitrous plate, there's still not enough clearance:
Left - old, right - new
Additionally, the PCV pipe Vararam inconveniently places in the coupler (really?!) needs to be relocated, at least in my case, so the coupler doesn't bang up against the throttle body and the Vararam. I cut down all the barbs but one on a common 90 degree brass 3/8 barbed fitting, and used an o-ring to capture it.
For bottle mounting, I plagerized a Subthump amplifier board, but added a horizontal mounting surface to it, glued and screwed together with a 1x1 and then carpeted with speaker box material held on with 3M 77 contact spray adhesive. Pretty standard stuff.
Nitrous line is routed thru one of the thru-holes in the right rear fenderwell next to where I mounted the BAP. To clarify what's going up/down thru the fender well holes: -4an nitrous line, Racetronix turn-on pink wire and red power wire, BAP Hobbs switch turn on signal wire (out and back). There is also the Racetronix ground strap from the negative battery post to that ground point above the BAP. I will eventually solder the BAP connections, but as a mechanical engineer I'm naturally distrustful of anything I cannot see or feel, such as electron-hole pairs LOL (it also explains why I am not fully trusting of the Lingenfelter timing box and load new timing tables when running nitrous).
Blow down is via -8an hose to a bulkhead fitting inside the 5th gen's wheel/battery well.
Nitrous feed line and the Racetronix/BAP wires exit downward here, near but outboard of the passenger side muffler. Things are tight with the feed line, but I'm changing that.
And here's a nearby shot showing where the blow down bulkhead fitting exits under the car:
This should give an idea of about where everything is routed underneath the car. Essentially the lines follow the lower subframe and the over to factory fuel line run, then up insided the heatshielded area on the passenger side of the engine compratment. Again, this is changing as I've dropped the rear subframe and fuel tank and will be routing lines overthe rear subframe to both shorten line lengths, remove bends, and isolate from subframe movement/vibration.
Nitrous feed comes up between the fender and the aformentioned heat shield. Notice the much shorter -6an fuel crossover line. Originally I had bought the Nitrous Outlet piece with the Fragola an-to-factory hardline adapters. They pretty much...suck...in my opinion. I gave it the old college try and burned thru 4 of those adapters (2 from the kit, 2 more that I stupidly bought thinking I'd eventually get it right) only to get one end done. Ended up using the new design Russell adapters (p/n 644123) that have a simple screw in capture piece. Notice also, that I bent a hardline for the solenoid to plate feed. Since it's -4an at the solenoid, the whole line had to be -4an. But since the plate is -3an, I had to get a -4male-to-3female adapter.
Fuel side, well, I've never been fond of returnless fuel systems and my particular pump seems to always have been on the weak side. Another 5th gen friend has a BAP for his KB supercharged 5th gen, and he wired his BAP the exact way as mine. Here's what my fuel pressure typically does:
Soooo, I was a little leery of pulling fuel from the rail because of that low all-motor low, in my opinion, fuel pressure. So I put together a standalone fuel system as described at the beginning of this post. Fyi, I bent all the hardlines myself. Hardline everywhere on the chassis side, flexible -an hose from chassis to engine. Btw, I highly, highly recommend the Koul Tools #468 to very easily install -an sleeves onto hoses. Extreme, extreme time saver. Also a simple plier type hose cutter with the circular shaped blades is far better than any fancy hose cutter in my opinion.
Fuel leaves bottom of cell, makes a 180 turn and downward as well, then runs to the front before making another 180 into the Holley Blue fuel pump (lines have since been redone to give more clearance to themselves, the chassis, etc, but this is still the basic setup),
...then it goes back into the engine bay, rising vertically up into the fuel filter, and then into the fuel distribution block.
...and a view of most of the system. One nice feature is that the return line can be disconnected from the cell at the end of the night, and then a coupler and a longer line attached to that bypass line, the other end put in the fuel jug, and then rearming the system to quickly drain the fuel cell.
Currently the car is in phase of 3 of "race car, break car, fix car". Last week I pulled the GForce axles, one of which has a bad CV joint, and am replacing with a new set of DSS axles. Yesterday I dropped the fuel tank and replaced the fuel hat with a ZL1 unit. The following week/month will be spent determining/fixing bad lifter (if the lifters get replaced, then I might as well send the heads off to get ported, right?!). Also currently looking at nitrous friendly cams and of course, all that entails (mainly thinking of new Cloyes adjustable timing gear/chain and a new oil pump).
Before anyone asks for time slips, there are no nitrous time slips yet. On motor I ran 12.2@117 while working to improve some pretty bad 1.9 60's, before breaking a CV joint on an axle back in December. Better driver than me should be able to pull high 11's I'd estimate just on motor. I did run the 100 shot setup at a 1/2-mile event last month (hence the breaking of the 'other' CV joint), but with 3.91 gears, I'm having to spray part of 5th as well, which I'm leery of as well, but supercharged cars run in 5th, so I would think the Tremec is okay with it.
Other items I'm looking to change are to fix the power taper occuring from low to high rpm. I'm 'assuming' getting rid of the bends in the feed line at the rear of the car will change that, and the power increases will be more uniform accross the rpm band. Another is to choose whether to go progressive or dual stage. I had a NX Maximizer 4 on order with Summit, but they finally cancelled the order after failing to deliver since mid-March when originally ordered. Short shifting 1-2 and spinning some of 2nd (with DR's), Need to get that taken care of before spraying more than 100. Any constructive, pragmatic thoughts on that would be appreciated. Also, any similar thoughts on spraying more than 150 would be appreciated as well. I have a couple friends with very lightweight cars that I race, and this heavy 5th gen really needs a bit more spray to be competitive with them. I figure if people can put centrifugals in stock short block 5th gens into the low 700 rwhp range, I 'should' be able to spray my stock short block into the low 700's as well.
05-13-2012, 12:57 PM
#2
You have a lot of time and effort into your system and I really dig that.
You also are having a pretty significant lean, then rich spike with the activation of your nitrous. You could look into shortening or lengthening lines, but the easiest way I have seen it done is through one of the new controllers that offer's slight delays to each solenoid to counter this from happening.
I see a slight lean spike on mine on activation, but it happens so quickly I don't worry about it, I would be more worried about the 10.x AFR than the lean spike.
Nitrous friendly cams are great, If you don't plan on spraying more than 250-300 a full-out nitrous race cam might not be the best, where as something that would work well on motor and nitrous would fit your car better possibly. Unless you plan to solely spray it.
I think you will need a progressive to make your suspension work. I honestly know nothing about IRS and vettes and 5th gens, and I come from the no progressive camp as I spray currently 150 off the transbrake without pulling any timing(more than what is needed for the N pill) or delaying the hit. I don't know if that is possible with a 5th gen at full weight.
I like the Nos Launcher personally. It's the same price or cheaper than the maximizer and has SO many more features including the ability to tune out those lean and rich spikes and actually setting up a custom nitrous map like you would your timing map through HP tuner's and not just this %, that time and this amount of ramp.
You also are having a pretty significant lean, then rich spike with the activation of your nitrous. You could look into shortening or lengthening lines, but the easiest way I have seen it done is through one of the new controllers that offer's slight delays to each solenoid to counter this from happening.
I see a slight lean spike on mine on activation, but it happens so quickly I don't worry about it, I would be more worried about the 10.x AFR than the lean spike.
Nitrous friendly cams are great, If you don't plan on spraying more than 250-300 a full-out nitrous race cam might not be the best, where as something that would work well on motor and nitrous would fit your car better possibly. Unless you plan to solely spray it.
I think you will need a progressive to make your suspension work. I honestly know nothing about IRS and vettes and 5th gens, and I come from the no progressive camp as I spray currently 150 off the transbrake without pulling any timing(more than what is needed for the N pill) or delaying the hit. I don't know if that is possible with a 5th gen at full weight.
I like the Nos Launcher personally. It's the same price or cheaper than the maximizer and has SO many more features including the ability to tune out those lean and rich spikes and actually setting up a custom nitrous map like you would your timing map through HP tuner's and not just this %, that time and this amount of ramp.
05-13-2012, 01:09 PM
#3
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Hadn't thought of using a progressive to make the suspension work. I have been resisting the use of a progressive, short of something with wideband input for safety.
I 'thought' I had done the right thing by shortening up the fuel side, but that lean spike is definitely still there.
The NOS Launcher software I have installed on my laptop, but I don't see where/how you delay solenoid openings?
I 'thought' I had done the right thing by shortening up the fuel side, but that lean spike is definitely still there.
The NOS Launcher software I have installed on my laptop, but I don't see where/how you delay solenoid openings?
