How does a nitrous progressive controller work?

stangboy

Founding Member
Aug 31, 1999
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New Orleans, LA
Can somebody explain to me in detail how a nitrous progressive controller works? I plan to put nitrous on my car once I see how it performs n/a. I was only planning to put 150 shot on the car. Well one of my close friends just put down almost 700rwhp in his '10 GT500. So now I'm contemplating putting a bigger shot on my car. I was thinking maybe a 300 shot with a progressive controller. What do you guys think? Should I think about maybe 2 stages of 150?
 
I would say single stage for sure. I like the edelbrock controller the best and have had great results with them. basically you determine the percentage of nitrous you would like to leave on and the time you would like to ramp the nitrous. for example leave on 30% and ramp over 1.2 seconds so if your running a 300 hit in theory you would be leaving on a 100 hit and by the time you've covered the 60' the whole kit would be in. It does this by chattering the ground on the nitrous and fuel solenoids. As long as you have good solenoids then this is no problem. It takes a little playing to get the setup right and the car to go down the track but that's what test and tune is for. If you need help with a nitrous tune up or setting up the progressive let me know
 
pretty much what he said but i prefer the NMS1000 since you can do all kinds of fancy :poo: with it to bring it on differently. its hard on the 'noids though.. they all are

we dont run any type of progressive. once its on its on. we use timers to bring the different kits on but we have the 2 we run on by .8
 
Thanks for breaking that down for me guys. Well once the car is back together and running good n/a then I'll see how bad he beats me. Then I'll figure out how much I want to spray. I plan to get the NOS Big Shot kit for EFI(the kit that has the plate between the upper and lower intake) which is adjustable between 150-300 shot.

The only thing that's concerning me is that you guys said the progressive controllers are hard on the solenoids. So, I'll be looking into the dual stage version of the kit also. NX makes the same kit so I'll see which one is better.
 
I'm curious.
Surely you know that a motor built to run on nitrous, does not run N/A.
In order to maximize the HP potential of an engine designed to run on N20, the L/C on the cam is such that the motor ran N/A runs like a pig.
You can throw all of the nitrous you want at the engine, but if the engine is built to run N/A, advertised HP levels sprayed will not be realized.
That said,...why bother to see how it runs "on the motor" if you intend to make all of your power sprayed?

As a footnote, The last 5.0 I ran that was purpose built for n2o had a sportsman fogger, and a cam ground on a 114 L/C. It ran 8.30's on the motor, and 6.60 sprayed in the 1/8th on 175 hp pills.
 
I'm curious.
Surely you know that a motor built to run on nitrous, does not run N/A.
In order to maximize the HP potential of an engine designed to run on N20, the L/C on the cam is such that the motor ran N/A runs like a pig.
You can throw all of the nitrous you want at the engine, but if the engine is built to run N/A, advertised HP levels sprayed will not be realized.
That said,...why bother to see how it runs "on the motor" if you intend to make all of your power sprayed?

As a footnote, The last 5.0 I ran that was purpose built for n2o had a sportsman fogger, and a cam ground on a 114 L/C. It ran 8.30's on the motor, and 6.60 sprayed in the 1/8th on 175 hp pills.
Well, when I was telling the cam grinder(Cam Motion) what the car will be used for and how I will run it, i told him that I'll mostly run it n/a but will spray it occasionally. I don't know if the cam grind is nitrous-friendly or not. I don't think the LCA is 114. If I remember correctly its 110. I just wanted to have the nitrous as kind of an insurance policy if I happen to be losing a race.
 
No doubt a motor can be built to run better on nitrous and take maximum advantage of what it has to offer. But, i would say that most amature/street driven nitrous users would prefer a well performing n/a motor, then spray it when they needed a little more.

Joe
 
No doubt a motor can be built to run better on nitrous and take maximum advantage of what it has to offer. But, i would say that most amature/street driven nitrous users would prefer a well performing n/a motor, then spray it when they needed a little more.

Joe
I agree, if the intent is to build a strong N/A combo then throw a 150 shot at it to augment that power, (when you need "a little more") then you take what you get, and call it a day.
But when the original post is from somebody contemplating using a Big shot system to try and get the MOST power out of his combo when the whole combo might be handicapped by a N/A cam just leaves me wondering why.:shrug:

Well, when I was telling the cam grinder(Cam Motion) what the car will be used for and how I will run it, i told him that I'll mostly run it n/a but will spray it occasionally. I don't know if the cam grind is nitrous-friendly or not. I don't think the LCA is 114. If I remember correctly its 110. I just wanted to have the nitrous as kind of an insurance policy if I happen to be losing a race.

No problem,..Every decision you make when building an engine will have consequences when trying to make max power. As w/ every power adder, N20, blower, turbos,or an engine built to run N/A...there is a cam profile recommendation w/ the intent to make the most power for that particular combo. in your case, a 110 L/C is a motor cam........purely a motor cam.
Blowers and turbos are more forgiving in that they force air in and a compromised cam profile will not affect max power potential "as much".

Bottom line, you just have to decide what you are willing to sacrifice in exchange for what you want. So do you spend $300.00+ for a progressive timer, and whatever the hell a $$$B/S system costs for an EFI engine when you'll never be able to realize the true power potential of the system to even need the controller?
or......
Do you contact the cam grinder and ask for a different $150.00 cam profile that'll truly take advantage of a nitrous system, w/ the knowledge that you'll sacrifice drivability, milage, and N/A power when you do?

P.S. Do you have the bottom end to support the kind of power you're looking for?
 
I agree, if the intent is to build a strong N/A combo then throw a 150 shot at it to augment that power, (when you need "a little more") then you take what you get, and call it a day.
But when the original post is from somebody contemplating using a Big shot system to try and get the MOST power out of his combo when the whole combo might be handicapped by a N/A cam just leaves me wondering why.:shrug:



No problem,..Every decision you make when building an engine will have consequences when trying to make max power. As w/ every power adder, N20, blower, turbos,or an engine built to run N/A...there is a cam profile recommendation w/ the intent to make the most power for that particular combo. in your case, a 110 L/C is a motor cam........purely a motor cam.
Blowers and turbos are more forgiving in that they force air in and a compromised cam profile will not affect max power potential "as much".

Bottom line, you just have to decide what you are willing to sacrifice in exchange for what you want. So do you spend $300.00+ for a progressive timer, and whatever the hell a $$$B/S system costs for an EFI engine when you'll never be able to realize the true power potential of the system to even need the controller?
or......
Do you contact the cam grinder and ask for a different $150.00 cam profile that'll truly take advantage of a nitrous system, w/ the knowledge that you'll sacrifice drivability, milage, and N/A power when you do?

P.S. Do you have the bottom end to support the kind of power you're looking for?
I sure hope a Dart Sportsman block, Scat 9000 forged crank and rods and Probe forged pistons is enough to handle the power. My comp will only be approx 9.6:1
 
I sure hope a Dart Sportsman block, Scat 9000 forged crank and rods and Probe forged pistons is enough to handle the power. My comp will only be approx 9.6:1

I thought the Scat 9000 series is a cast crank. I say this because that is what I run. A Scat 9000 cast crank, 4340 Scat forged I Beams and Probe SRS pistons. This setup is rated to 550HP.

Joe
 
Actually nitrous motors run very good NA... The race car would run mid 8s with a gear and converter change. We could go a little higher compression wise off the bottle but the cam wouldn't need changed
 
Actually nitrous motors run very good NA... The race car would run mid 8s with a gear and converter change. We could go a little higher compression wise off the bottle but the cam wouldn't need changed

The use of the term "runs very good" must have a different meaning for you sir.;)

Every purpose built nitrous motor I've ever seen had a cam w/ a ridiculous L/C for a N/A motor (like 116). And every second hand conversation I had w/ the owner of the motor all revolved around the conversation from the cam grinder letting them know to forget about performance N/A with that cam in it. That, coupled w/ the required slow burning nitrous blended fuel (as I'm sure you know) would net a N/A run that would be....uhhh.....less than comparable to the motor built to run that way.
As for bumping the comp, the same engines already had stupid high comp ratios as well (13-14),.......how much higher would you go than that?

P.S. How much more (besides a gear, converter, and a possible bump in comp) would you change to consider it a straight across comparison to a N/A engine pass)? :cool:
 
The use of the term "runs very good" must have a different meaning for you sir.;)

Every purpose built nitrous motor I've ever seen had a cam w/ a ridiculous L/C for a N/A motor (like 116). And every second hand conversation I had w/ the owner of the motor all revolved around the conversation from the cam grinder letting them know to forget about performance N/A with that cam in it. That, coupled w/ the required slow burning nitrous blended fuel (as I'm sure you know) would net a N/A run that would be....uhhh.....less than comparable to the motor built to run that way.
As for bumping the comp, the same engines already had stupid high comp ratios as well (13-14),.......how much higher would you go than that?

P.S. How much more (besides a gear, converter, and a possible bump in comp) would you change to consider it a straight across comparison to a N/A engine pass)? :cool:

converter would need to be in the 5000-5500 range from the 3900 or so we can stall to now we could also go to 16:1 but other then 8.50 index there isnt a class we could run in NA so why bother? the gears would need to go from 4.10 to a 4.56 since we have it geared to run 1/4mile on the bottle (well had it geared that way) we already are at 14:1 on C23. when we make NA hits we run on C12. its been 9.12@154mph with a 1.46 60'@2900lbs

there are 2 theorys to building nitrous motors.... the one you posted about giving up NA power to make more on the bottle. the other is to make as much power as you can NA while keeping the compression nitrous friendly.
 
^^ What you said.
We had a nitrous car that ran great n/a with just a converter swap.
8.2's on a hit 9.7 n/a
swap the converter and 9.2's n/a
same fuel for both setups just converter and timing maps were different.