Has anyone tried to use nitrous as a boost for rc engines? I know it would suck a lot more fuel and it would probably blow the engine in short order, but it sure sounds cool...any ideas?

It would add to much weight with a tank, solenoids etc.

Im not sure what the AMA would think about flying around with a tank of high pressure NOS, sure would make an impressive crash.

Its pretty easy to put a motor in a plane that will allow it to hover and aggressivly pull out so the need for a big shot of power really isnt there.
Adam

Yeah true, but it is for a car, so weight isnt as much of a factor, and there are times when an extra boost would be awesome.

Well if you get the right dose of nitrous and fuel you should be able to boost the power a respectable amount without hurting the motor. I dont know if anyone has tried this already or not.
Your best bet would be to contact one of the NOS manufacturers, they will be able to help you.
Adam

I have heard of a few attempts to utilize nitrous oxide in small engines. I seem to recall the old American Helicopters outfit in SoCal tried it for the engine used in their giant Atlas Van Lines Hydro boat before the company was destroyed by fire. There was a chap up here who tried it in a Webra .90 with completely disasterous results which ended in a cracked head. I think the problem would be metering the miniscule amounts of NO needed and at the right time; I believe even for large engines the amount needed is very small. The small tanks used for microflame torches would be just the right size....

nitrous is simply a way of stuffing more oxygen into the combustion chamber. for model engines we have a similar system, nitromethane.

it should be possible to set up two fuel supplies- one with normal fuel and one with a very high percentage of nitro- and a servo controlled valve to switch between them. you would also need a separate needle valve for each fuel or a way to richen the flow when you switch to the "power" fuel.

dave

I have done it, it will very quickly destroy your engine though. There are a few problems that you would come across. first of all you need to understand the way that NO2 or nitrous oxide works, a molecule of air is composed of roughly 70% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and 10% other gases. A molecule of NO2 is composed of 33%nitrogen, and 66%oxygen. This means that on the intake stroke you are drawing in a lot more oxygen, therfore you can use more fuel therefore increasing power, also since the NO2 is stored as a liquid, and discharged as a liquid, when it changes into a gas, it rapidly cools the incoming fuel/air mix, meaning you can cram even more of this stuff into the intake stroke. Now, here is where the problems erupt, When the NO2 is dishcharged, it needs more fuel other wise it leans out the mix too much and power suffers. So first off you need a way to inject more fuel, either you can richen the needle valve, or have a seperate injector which is the way cars use NO2. So, you need a solenoid to discharge the NO2 and either a servo to open up the needle valve, or a pump and servo to pump more fuel into the carb. This is where you get a break. You can get NO2 in little 8gram bulbs for refillible whipping cream containers, this stuff is food grade so it is very pure. Now my setup was a very simple one, my fuel richening was done by me opening the needle valve, and the NO2 discharge was done by me opening a valve that was in the injector line, this boosted my .40LA running on 45%nitro to 21k rpm spinning an 11x7 prop. total runtime at this speed was about 10 secs then my glow plug melted. So go for it it is possible, but will be expensive. The ultimate thing would be to have your own machine shop or access to one and make your own parts, that would be able to handle the stress.

Ha! I forgot about whippits, those would work...and I do happen to have a really good machine shop at school....i can make some good trength parts, Ill let you know how it goes...

For another way to get boost, I have used rocket engines (solid fuel "D" size , in my case). I used a contact at full throttle to complete the ignition circut...quite a kik for about a second

Yeah apparently AMA and a ton of ppl don't like us fixing rockets to our airplanes, i built an electric switch that was activated off of my gear channel to fire a rocket, not for boost, but anyways the whippits are what i used. To puncture the top i used a thing for pumping up hockey skates with CO2 and it worked fine, i cut the adaptor thing off the top and plumbed in a 1/4 feed line. The main things that i think you'd need to make out of steel instead of aluminum, or make beefier ones, would be the crankshaft, connecting rod, connecting rod pin, and maybe the piston. Good Luck!!