This is one of those topics that I have mixed feelings about. As a tech for NX and from the knowledge I gained over the years I highly recommend not using a torch to heat a bottle. However, I have been guilty of doing it in the past and I would blame it on "street" racing, lol. Honestly, I have only ran at a track a couple of times in the last 8 years or so, the rest of my racing has been on the street and in a crunch to get a race done I've had to resort to a torch to heat the bottle. Was it a bad idea, yes.

BUT, as John (GoldZ) has said, I don't think there has ever been a documented instance where heating a bottle with a torch was the direct result of a bottle explosion. That's definately not to say it's ok, but how bad can it be really? Most of us know that the torch can create weak spots in the aluminum of the bottle, but again, there is not any documented proof that this has caused an explosion. I will say this, I don't use the torch method any more simply because I don't want to be the first documented instance, lol.

On the topic of heat and bottles. I think it would be possible to have a bottle explode from a torch but it would take quite a while because the heat source is too centralized in a small spot. There was a good friend/customer of ours that had his race car burn to the ground a while back and one of his bottles inside the car exploded from the heat. The fire completely engulfed the bottle and I guess heated the entire thing very quickly. The bottle looked like someone had cut it and peeled it open like a tin can, pretty scary looking. So I guess that if you could make the heat from the torch cover more area and get it to heat the bottle quicker, then it could cause an explosion. Who knows?

Beaflag VonRathburg - It cracks me up when people bring up this guy's explosion and try to say that nitrous is dangerous or heating bottles is dangerous or whatever else they like to say when this guy is brought up. The truth of the matter is that guy did every single thing you could possibly do wrong when it comes to safely heating a nitrous bottle.
- he doubled up the burst disks which raises their burst rating to a point that is higher than the burst rating of the bottle itself.
- he wired the bottle heater to a constant power source instead of to a switched power source. When he turned the car off, the heater continued to have power to it.
- he was heating the bottle with the bottle valve shut. This took the pressure cut-off switch out of the equation, so the heater would continue to heat indefinately.
- he left the heater on when he parked the car in his garage and went inside his house, not giving a second thought to the heater being on.

That explosion was caused by nothing more than a single persons absolute stupidity concerning nitrous safety, period. It had nothing to do with the heater, nitrous system, nitrous product, or product failure.

Sorry if that came across wrong, but it really irritates me when people bring that guy up trying to give nitrous a negative image (nitrous doesn't need any help in that department, lol), and most of the time the people bringing it up have no idea of the rest of that story.

 

I wasn't trying to say that it was just a random event, it's obvious he's a dumbass, look at what he was trying to race a four door maxima . I totally agree with you. I'm not trying to say nitrous is dangerous or anything like that, once I get some $ I'm gonna hit the spray too. All I was trying to show was an example of a bottle exploding and what sort of damage it could do.

 

I think I'll call Myth Busters and have them do it for us lol.

 

what best time did they end up running? just wondering.

 

pinks is a GAY show. somebody calls somebody out to say i'm faster,but i want 5 cars head start. there is no honor in that,it's like racing a ricer,they think there bad,but need x-amount of cars to have a shot.during this GAY show,of bull shi*;the price is your car,if the slow guy is so bad,then race straight up.

 

nobody calls anybody "out". A bunch of guys say they want to race and Nate sets up a race between two cars that should be half-way close in performance.

The people racing have no idea who they are racing or what they are racing until they start taping. That is except the Bike race between Slowe and Miller and they raced heads up the whole time.

 

the fox body won, but ony cause the mero was osin oil on the track. At the start of the race, the ford guy was cryin about how fast the mero was. After getting lengths and beating the f body, he suddenly got a stiffie. Just like any stang owner. Pathetic. That makes me mad, then the mero was having probs, so the ford guy starts showing that he is a poor sport and tries to rush him along. What an ***.

 

I know for a fact someone who died from taking a torch to a bottle his pumping station had been broke for awhile and he had been taking partial bottles and puting them into one ( freeze one heat other ) wich is fine if done properly but he was using a torch. explosion was heard over 5 miles away I heard aproximatly 3 mile away going down road with radio on. litteraly blew him into peices. sent two more to hospital who where on the other side of garage good 80 feet away. I DO NOT exagerate when I say blew him into peices. I have and still do it but just be warned do it long enough and it will bite you in ***. P.S. DO NOT BUY USED BOTTLES WITH BURN MARKS.

 

its called natural selection.

 

Darwin Awards style.

 

The pressure disk would burst if the pressure got too high, but the theory behind heating a bottle with a torch is that it weakens the bottle. The weakened bottle would explode at pressures LESS than what would cause the disk to blow....