A little bit of knowlege is a dangerous thing. All nitrous does is raise cylinder pressure. Period. I ran a 100+ shot for years on my stocko motor w/o any ill effects. Yeah the guy could spend a buncha dough and get a killer motor, but that wasn't his question. I don't see any other way to get 100 HP out of a thousand bucks except nitrous.

 

I know this is totally unrelated, but here goes...
There is a gentleman in N. Florida who runs a 225HP wet-shot on a basically stock 1998 Z28. He has been doing so for years and has won many races/made a lot of money with the car. Am I advocating for you to run out and try this? No. Is he just very lucky? Maybe. But he does do all the smart stuff to go along with nitrous usage.
My point to this ramble is that there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. If nitrous isn't your bag, baby, that's cool. My issue is with folks (like myself at one time) who bad-mouth things they know nothing about (not directed at anyone specifically). I have some first hand experience and will share what I've personally seen/done/comes from a credible source, not some fairy-tales propagated by the "Slow and the Spurious" crowd... Thank you for letting me babble...

 

At the very least I would have a dyno test done on the car to see where the motor stands now. A cylinder pressure test would also be a good idea.

 

I dunno, nitrous when properly applied isn't any harder on the bottom end than an equal amount of power created via heads and cam, a super charger, or anything else.

From a physics standpoint, the nitrous does nothing to make power. All nitrous does is put more oxygen in the cylinder, so you can burn more fuel. The extra power comes from burning the fuel, not nitrous. In fact, nitrous oxide isn't even flammable.

If he's going to build the bottom end, then he can do what ever he wants. Buy saying that N20 is more dangerous to a 110K shortblock than heads and cam isn't correct. If you add the same amount of power, the bottom end wear should be pretty much the same. There's some argument that could be made as to what degree of crank rotation that cylinder pressure is being applied, but that's pretty far above this thread.

The main advantage to nitrous, in my opinion, is actually what Case seems to consider the biggest draw back, it's only there sometimes. If you put heads and cam on your LT1 and make 400 RWHP, every time you lay in the throttle you are putting 400 HP worth of wear and tear on your short block, rear end, transmission, basically the whole car. With nitrous, you can go out and hammer on the stock motor all night long, put the STOCK amount of wear and tear on the engine and drivetrain, and then only put the added wear and tear of 400 HP on the car when you really need/want it.

Nitrous isn't for everyone though, there's lots of people who go plenty fast without it. Let's just try to spread accurate information about it though, not the rumors and other crap that has been perpetuated by movies and street racing folklore for the last 15 years.

 

All depends on what you want out of the car.

 

If I only had $1,000 set aside for mods I'd put it in the for when it breaks account.

Now, if you have 2,000 dollars and want 100 more horsepower spend it on Nitrous. If you have 5K think about heads and cam because that 1,800 head cam upgrade can easily OH BUY the way a good chunk of five grand.

IE

Valve train
Injectors
Good tuning
Headers
Exhausts
Gaskets

While you're in there why not the water pump and opti (trust me you'll find stuff that's working to replace"
High Stall converter
while replacing the converter might as well replace the u-joints
with all of this power how about a D44 swap.

while the diffs out how about some polyurethane bushings,

High flow cats for the headers

and so on!

So NOS looks pretty darn good. However, whenever you start playing hard with an old vehicle stuff may break.

MIke

 

Mike this is my reasoning behind my statement as well mate, and my view is very simular to yours. Built it strong so you know you can flog it all day and all night,

 

If you only have $1k this is your only option. I'd budget a bit more than $1k for all the extras and saftey stuff. People have run nitrous in LT1 motors to 200k+ miles. Check out the f-body forums. The advantage is that the added stress occurs only when the nitrous is used. I also choose not to launch on the nitrous to save the trans and rear from damage.


The heads and cam or stroker build would cost at least $4k and more than likely much much more.
http://www.eportworks.com/lt1.html

 

You want 400rwhp. You're going to have to rebuild your engine prior if you want that 400rwhp (from nitrous oxide or any other method) for more than about three minutes.

There goes your $1000.


Sorry, but you'll need to budget about five large if you want 400 genuine, useable, reliable rear wheel horsepower. (Larry's Rule of Thumb is $50/1hp)

Real horsepower is not cheap or easy....if it were we'd all have about 700 of them.


Larry
code5coupe

__________
not easily impressed....

 

alot of ya'll are not reading the whole question...$1,000 isnt the budget more of a question..could it be done... im willing to spend more and thank all of you for your input. I would however like some input on what ya'll are running i.e cam size, heads, exhaust system etc. Exhaust is going to be my first step...My car still has the factory mufflers and cats( i'm sure they are ready for replacement...95 lt1 w/113k) what size pipe/i prefer flowmasters but not sure which type of flowmaster has given the best results)

 

Best single low cost engine mod for the LT1 seems to be the Hotcam kit. With that you can freshen up your top end at the same time and have your heads ported. Lots of threads on those mods. Try the search function.

 

Here is where I would start, a 3.73 or 3.75 rear gear depending on what carrier you have now and a 9.5 2800 stall converter. This will wake your car up bigtime. I picked up 8/10ths at the track. With a heads and cam swap you would need more rear gear and a higher stall anyways. You could do the gears and the converter if you do 99% of the work for about $1500.00 including someone setting up the ring and pinion. I don't think a heads and cam LTX would run all that great with the stock gears and converter.

 

The LTX exhaust although very quiet is quite efficient. You won't pick up much of anything changing the catback except noise.

 

do any of you all out there run a h/c package with stock gearing.

 

For $1,000 I would add a nitrous kit and some moderately sticky tires...period. I would NOT add a gear because you will learn real quick that with nitrous you will make gobs more torque especially within the first 1,000 rpm of your nitrous engagement. Pulling a steaper gear will not be your challenge...getting traction is another story.

 

By the looks of your setup and screen name you know alot more about nitrous than I do What kind of gain would you think an otherwise stock LT1 would gain from a 100 shot ? Would you spray it from a dead stop ? I am thinking about spraying mine but more for the top of second gear and third. Thanks !

 

This is not meant to be an insult directed at anyone and I'm not saying he's right or wrong on the nitrous debate... but for the betterment of the CF community, irregardless is not a real word. Totally off topic I know, but it's illogical to say irregardless.

Sorry, it annoys me. :o

 

Turbo's or Superchager but the compression on the LT1 maybe a issue.

You want a lower compression than what the LT1 has I believe like a 9:1

 

I agree on gears. That's what I hear one of the best mods for the money if you want a lower 1/4 mile time.

 

I used that word just to annoy you...