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NX Proton mini-review

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Old Aug 24, 2015 | 10:48 PM
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Default NX Proton mini-review

I was having a hard time hitting the tires hard enough with my combo and 3200 stall to get a decent 60'....even with 4.30 gears, that was I looking at a $1200 billet 4400 stall so I might run bottom 11s, high 10s. My best ET was 11.67 @ 119.6mph with a 1.806 60' with no tire spin at all.

NX Proton mini-review-1o2hvff.jpg

An event was coming up for a rented track and no NHRA tech, and my car being a true daily driven street car, baby seats and all, I wanted to make sure I got my opportunity to run a 10. Being on a budget (layed off from work, father of two, full time student, yadda, yadda) I was given a generous cash donation from my mother on my birthday so I could go racing. That expensive converter is a no-go...way too expensive right now. Then the thought came to a good shot of nitrous to give me that little oomph off the line I needed. Just about the only thing in my price range was the Nitrous Express Proton system. I had previous contemplated doing a 50 or 75 dry shot into the MAF just to help get that 60' down, but my MAF g/sec is already near max and my 42lb injectors are already past 80%. More than one person I trust told me to just go wet. So, I did.

The week leading up to the event I put the bottle and bracket in one evening. I stripped BOTH plugs in the bottle trying to remove one for a pressure gauge. Guess they used a healthy amount of red lock-tite or cross threaded them in there! I ended up with a flow-through fitting to put the gauge in instead. I used a house framing bracket to mount the solenoid housing and got that spliced into my fuel system. I really like that housing...I'm designing a billet bracket for it at school. Should be killer. Grabbed the piece of intake tube needed for the nozzle and drilled it and installed the fitting on yet another day.

Looked basically like this when I left for the event, except the n2o feed line was in place.
Attachment 722136

All work was performed in this parking lot.
Attachment 722617

Got to the track, and on the first day of the two day event I focused on getting the car setup right, hooking and running the n20 tune a few times without the nitrous wired. Then that evening I wired it all up and went to sleep in my wonderful tent. It was cold.

Attachment 722618

My two runs in the morning were smoke shows off the line...something that never happens with this car. Track prep was pretty iffy. Time was running short, so I said screw it and with my fuel level running low, I plopped in the 100 hp jets, opened the bottle and armed the system. I left the line easy and ran a 11.67 @ 96.14mph letting off just before the 1/8th because it went dead lean and started breaking up. 1/8th mile was 7.254 @ 98.9mph compared to 7.575 @ 94.8mph N/A. Fuel gauge read 1/4 full, but that apparently gets sucked dry enough by half track to uncover the pickup. Bummed a ride into town to grab 5 gallons of 92...not a chance I'm paying $12 a gallon at the track for race gas I don't need.

Back with more than 1/2 tank of gas, I was ready to go again. Still hit it pretty soft out of the hole but it was enough. Ran a 10.98 @ 126.4mph with a 1.735 60'. Other guy was a sport bike of some kind. Attachment 722619

If you look at the TPS% you can see how conservative the launch was.
Attachment 722620

Then we ran out of time, had a top-end crash and that ended the day. But, this Proton kit was priced right, went together easy and just simply worked. I'm a believer now.

tldr; I installed a NX Proton kit in a parking lot, wired it in the pits and went from 11.67 N/A to 10.98 with a 100 shot and a conservative launch.
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Old Aug 25, 2015 | 09:23 AM
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Very nice! Yeah, I really am a fan of the proton. Its priced very well, and it can add up to 150hp right out of the box. Cool ride.

-Garrett
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Old Aug 25, 2015 | 10:05 PM
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Everything looks good, except I would consider rerouting the line running to the fuel rail. If the serpentine belt lets loose you are probably going to have big problems.
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Old Aug 26, 2015 | 12:34 PM
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Glad you got your goal of a 10 second ET. Probably made sleeping that that cold tent worth it.
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Old Aug 26, 2015 | 02:30 PM
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Glad to hear you made it into the 10's!

-Chris
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Old Aug 26, 2015 | 06:05 PM
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Originally Posted by jblankenship
Everything looks good, except I would consider rerouting the line running to the fuel rail. If the serpentine belt lets loose you are probably going to have big problems.
Not worried about a belt doing anything to a braided line.

Originally Posted by Rise of the Phoenix
Glad you got your goal of a 10 second ET. Probably made sleeping that that cold tent worth it.
Two nights in the tent freezing my *** off! And yes it was worth it. Now I'm pricing out cages...just really don't want to cage a car I put my kids into.

Originally Posted by NitrousExpress
Glad to hear you made it into the 10's!

-Chris
Thanks, you guys made it easy! I'm sure I will get to mid-10s without much trouble before I run out of RPM and have to swap gears. And if it was missed earlier, this is my only car and I drive it every day and transport my kids in it. Happy to tell people, "it runs 10s" when someone corners me at a gas station, grocery store parking lot, school parking lot, etc.
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Old Aug 27, 2015 | 08:14 AM
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I don't blame you on the cage. I have no experience whatsoever with cages, but I wouldn't want a cage in a car that I drive a lot on the street, especially if you have passengers. But, if you want to run at the track, you pretty much have to have one.
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 11:50 PM
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Got it on the dyno today at a dyno-day party. Made 520, corrected (550 uncorrected), with a 150 shot on a Mustang dyno. Bottle was hating the cold night, so we battled that issue a bit. Adding a heater here shortly. It made 408 naturally aspirated.

Spun the tires pretty hard on the dyno!

NX Proton mini-review-8v5h6jy.jpg
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Old Nov 29, 2015 | 06:13 PM
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How much timing did you pull at those 2 power levels? And how did you pull it?
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Old Feb 3, 2016 | 07:00 PM
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Originally Posted by oldschool
How much timing did you pull at those 2 power levels? And how did you pull it?
Late reply. Pulled 6 degrees and did it by reflashing the tune. Changing that this spring to pull from a switched IAT resistor bypass.
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Old Feb 6, 2016 | 07:25 PM
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Okay thanks - I not overly computer savy and all my tuning was done by a professional. I'm looking for the easiest/laziest way to pull timing. Maybe it's time I learned HP tuners lol
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Old Feb 7, 2016 | 07:40 AM
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It looks like you are using full pressure on the fuel side. I thought you had to regulate the fuel pressure down to 5-6 pounds for the nitrous setup. How did you get that to work?
Thanks
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Old Feb 7, 2016 | 04:30 PM
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Originally Posted by oldschool
Okay thanks - I not overly computer savy and all my tuning was done by a professional. I'm looking for the easiest/laziest way to pull timing. Maybe it's time I learned HP tuners lol
Yes, HP Tuners or EFI live is a must have tool for anyone running the factory EFI.

Originally Posted by dw456post
It looks like you are using full pressure on the fuel side. I thought you had to regulate the fuel pressure down to 5-6 pounds for the nitrous setup. How did you get that to work?
Thanks
Never heard that idea before. The fuel jets meter x amount of fuel at a given fuel pressure. Lower the pressure and you'll need to run a larger jet, increase the pressure and you'll need a smaller jet. Reference here to see what I mean: http://www.nitrousexpress.com/jetting.html

Specific example: look at this one, the last table for GM fullsize pickup. For 150 nitrous, use nitrous jet 62. For fuel pressure 9-13, use 46 jet. For fuel pressure 40-45, use 38 jet. For fuel pressure 55-60, use 36 jet. http://www.nitrousexpress.com/oldweb...mjetting09.pdf
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Old Feb 7, 2016 | 06:28 PM
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Thanks, That would eliminate a 75 buck regulator.
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