if everyone could pardon my ignorance, I have a really stupid question to ask.

I know that NItrous Oxide injected into an engine makes more power because at 565 degrees the bond between the oxygen molecule and the 2 Nitrogen molecules is broken and blah blah blah...my question is...what would happen if one were to inject just oxygen into an engine? Would the ECM compensate the additional oxygen with additional fuel? or would everything just go boom?
I have never heard of anyone doing anything like this, theoretically what do you think would happen?

why Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is used:

if your running a wet system (The only way to go) (im not sure how a dry system operates), the nitrous is dumped into the intake tubing of the engine, substantially cooling the intake temperature.. this allows more air to be sucked down into the cylender due to the fact that it is more dense. theres your first power producing effect. when it is heated to the 500 degree point, the molecules use a small amount of energy to break down, and then you have oxygen (an oxidizer) and nitrogen (which wont really contribute to the combustion). the oxygen helps the extra gasoline that was injected into the intake to be burnt, cauzing a higher cylender pressure, giving more power (and shorter engine life if you arent careful!). the nitrogen is in there, and it just kinda is used to take up space as a "buffer"..

thats pretty much how nitrous works.

now, lets say we just dumped gaseous oxygen into the intake piping.. you would get the same cooling effect, so you would gain power from that.. but when it enters your combustion chamber, you have pure oxygen (no nitrogen for a buffer) so things get a little more hectic.. IE explosions, melting engine parts, etc.

so really, allthough it might be cheaper to rigg up an oxygen injection system, go with nitrous!

if you want a real good site on how nitrous kits are put togeather (for example, if you wanted to build one), goto www.nitrous.info its a really good site..

also, if you are seriousally thinking about running nitrous, run two steps colder plugs, and back your timing off 2 degrees for every 50 horsepower boost.. thats just what Ive been told.. any comments on these rules would be appreciated!

hope I helped!
jude

and also a disclamer.. I have absolutally no experience with nitrous.. i am passing on the tidbits of info I have collected.. I believe this info to be right, but really dont have a clue!

Metal, when saturated with oxygen, will combust... so will anything else

you should read this:
http://robrobinette.com/nitrous.htm

[This message has been edited by Jeremiah (edited 04-10-2004).]

This doesn't answer your question,but heres a good article on the possibilites of forced air induction.
http://www.fierofocus.com/articles/0101Bored%20Performance%20-%20David%20Gunsul.htm

Pure oxygen? The stuff that enables acetylene to melt thru 2" plate steel? You may be the 1st person to blow the 2.8 cyl heads completely thru the decklid. It's an interesting question, and I'm sure you aren't seriously considering it, but don't think I want to be nearby if you do try it.

can you video tape that for me? id like to see that

quote Originally posted by BBFieroV6: or would everything just go boom?

Yup, it would run REALLY fast and hot for a VERY short period of time. I doubt it would make even part of a run down the track, then very bad stuff would happen.

itd be fun if you wanted an 4-8(depends on how many cylinders) shot missile launcher in the back of yer fiero im sure.. lmao..

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Pure oxygen? The stuff that enables acetylene to melt thru 2" plate steel? You may be the 1st person to blow the 2.8 cyl heads completely thru the decklid. It's an interesting question, and I'm sure you aren't seriously considering it, but don't think I want to be nearby if you do try it.

Ditto!

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Tim
Red 88 Formula Auto 2.8 100K+ Miles - Hypertech - No Cat - No EGR

Murphys Law - "Nothing is as easy as it looks, Everything takes longer than you expect, And if anything can go wrong - it will, At the worst possible moment!"

The way an internal combustion (IC) motor works is that the combustion of fuel and oxygen heats the remainder of the air charge, primarily nitrogen, which causes it to expand. That expansion is what pushes down on the piston and does the work. If you add pure oxygen and additional fuel to match you'll get more heat, and that will cause the air charge to expand a little more, but the amount of heat added will cause all sorts of thermal stresses and damage in the motor. The way to get more power is to add more fuel, more oxygen, and more expansion gas to do the work, in proportional amounts. So, you could inject straight compressed air with additional fuel to match the O2 percentage of the injected air, getting more work, that's how turbo/supercharging essentially works.

Basically the big limitation is the combustion temperature in the cylinders, that's limited to around 1500 or less degrees Farenheit due to thermal limits of the materials used in engine designs. Remember the experiments with ceramic motors? That line of thought was that ceramics could withstand fairly high temps and eliminate the cooling system, keeping all the heat in the motor. Cooling systems only exist to keep the engine metals from being damaged from extreme heat. The heat rejected from the coolling system is essentially energy from combustion being wasted and not used for work.

JazzMan