Strut Bar - Is it Really Needed in Your Car or Vehicle?

Strut Bars are the evolutionary aftermarket addition to the normal McPherson Struts. Usually a favorite in car customization and an integral part of heavy trucks and SUVs, strut bars are now finding their place in the sun when it comes to normal small cars as well.

People consider additional struts especially horizontal bars as high performance additions to their cars. There is a general belief that McPherson Struts or independent suspensions can be unstable at higher speeds. As an additional feature to increase the stability, independent suspensions on either side of the vehicle are joined by a common horizontal bar called the Strut Bar.

The two suspensions on either side when connected by a common bar experience reduced flex between them and that provides much needed stability at higher speeds. This is an important feature in heavy and large vehicles and performance cars but what makes people think that strut bars can stabilize their small cars? Do smaller cars really need stability?

Well the answer is No. Unless you are traveling at really high speeds, which you anyways shouldn't do with normal cars, you definitely do not require additional struts to support your car suspension. Auto experts believe that horizontal struts have been popularized as a high performance addition to cars in the name of car customization. There is no real need for normal cars to have extra struts but in case someone wants his vehicle to have one, there is no serious harm either.

At most, additional struts will make the suspension in your car stiffer reducing the drive comfort especially over rougher terrains. Since suspensions are linked together, there may be slight vibration on rough roads because of the reduced independent movement. Also the added weight of the strut may decrease gas mileage to some extent. In case you are hell bent on having additional struts fixed in your vehicle, make sure you ask an expert mechanic to do it or else there may be serious performance problems with your car suspension.

Most sports cars, heavy and light trucks, SUVs, 4x4s and ATVs are available with strut bars as a normal fitment.

So what kind of vehicles need a strut bar if they don't have it as a standard fitment?

If you are optimizing your normal car to perform at higher speeds and exhibit greater accelerations or powering it with turbo-chargers and NOS (Nitrous Oxide Systems), then the strut bar will be a useful addition to the pack. If you own a larger vehicle and it does not have a strut bar as a standard fitment, you should invest in one. In that case, I would suggest to for used strut bars as they cost almost one-third of the cost of new ones.

To conclude, you are the best person to assess whether your car needs a strut bar or not. Although it is not a decision to ponder over but you can certainly weigh the pros and cons depending on the type of vehicle you own and the type of use you subject it to.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3874185

Nitrous Vs Turbo - When Turbo Should Not Be Utilized

There is a big debate over the use of turbochargers in naturally aspirate motors, especially amongst drag racers. New turbo technology makes it so that every combustion engine with enough exhaust flow can benefit from the boost generated by a turbos' compact and powerful fin turbine. This generates air pressures that boost a motor's horsepower potential.

Though every engine can be turbocharged, that doesn't mean some naturally aspirated car owners would want to add them to the power plant currently residing under the hood. A combination of power and traction is required to control an engine's potential and transfer it to the wheels.

One place where you see the turbo versus non-turbo debate is at the local drag strip or race track. Many of the racers have different experiences when it comes to boosting the parts installed.

Drivers who have small displacement motors may choose to include a turbo to get the response they need on a race track when they push their RPM to the limit. These foreign made "rice burners" could never compete against some of the big displacement muscle car motors that you'll find on the race tracks. Not without adding a powerful turbo to their engine package. This may be the perfect solution for them, but it is not something a big displacement engine owner considers when they want to increase the power and performance, as well as transfer of that power to the streets through the wheels.

The first fallacy of turbos is that you get extra power at any throttle opening. This is false. A turbo compression wheel does not create maximum boost until the throttle is in a WOT (wide open throttle) position for a number of seconds. You may never WOT a throttle around town streets as a turbo would let the daily driver down when it comes to throttle response.

Now that you know the downside of turbo power, you can see why a big muscle car motor might do better with nitrous oxide and a monitoring system for heat. Heat is the number one power robbing component in the combustion engine. Adding a turbo will only add to the build-up of heat inside the combustion chambers. This robs the motor of its power building abilities when trying to get the most horsepower to the wheels. Find out from a wheel supplier which wheels will complement the turbo you have.

Large displacement motors and pickup trucks are susceptible to these environments more than any other engine. Running hot laps back and forth can generate engine busting temperatures that can be exacerbated by a turbo's added heat induction. Often, the larger and heavier cars use turbos to increase the power for forward momentum. Diesel is also usually used in these vehicles because of the initial power and fuel needed to accelerate these vehicles.

If you have a large displacement drag car that operates on staged nitrous oxide induction, you might not want to add a turbo because it won't make much of a difference. Turbos are great if the vehicle is able to suitably control the power of the wheels, drive shaft, tyres and the engine.

Visit our website https://rbinnovations.com for details or call us at 315-451-4441 to buy nitrous oxide engines.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9979633

Utilizing Nitrous Oxide to Boost/Improve Your Supercharger Performance

There comes a point in your power buildup where you may consider adding nitrous oxide injection to your supercharged car. This point typically coincides with reaching a level of performance that means increased investment and diminishing returns from your supercharger. For example, my car comes from the factory with a 5th generation Eaton MP45 supercharger. This supercharger is limited to about 230hp worth of flow rating and so no matter what I do with bolt-on upgrades on nitrous oxide engine, my peak horsepower will not exceed 230hp limit because that is the point at which the supercharger becomes the bottle neck in my system.

As we've talked about in previous articles there is still the option of porting the factory supercharger for a 10 to 15% gain in capacity (which in this case would be another 23 to 35 horsepower). There is also the option of retrofitting a larger supercharger such as the Eaton M62 to gain potential up to over 300hp depending on the final choice of a supercharger.

This modification path (porting or replacing the factory supercharger) can prove to be complex and costly, especially if the supercharger is integrated into the intake manifold (and possibly an air to water intercooler) as the case is with many factory supercharged cars.

A possible viable solution for this situation is to use nitrous oxide injection to supplement the power delivery when racing, and being satisfied with a reliable lower powered car when the nitrous is off and we're not racing.

The reason why nitrous oxide (N2O) becomes a great power adder is twofold:

1- Nitrous is cheap as far as horsepower per dollar goes, and especially in the situations where we're already supercharged and so will only be using it on the rare occasions when we do hit the track.

2- Nitrous oxide is a great 'chiller' as it comes out of the bottle at a temperature of negative 127*F and is capable of cooling the overall supercharged air charge mixture by over 100*F as reported by enthusiasts, this is an additional temperature reduction over the effects of whatever intercooler you have fitted. This in-fact makes nitrous a great proposition for cars that have already maxed out their superchargers, where the supercharger is running at peak rpms and producing very high outlet temperatures. The nitrous oxide injection can effectively boost the thermal efficiency of the supercharger when it is most stressed out and give us a nice, cool, and dense mixture.

3- Nitrous oxide fuel delivery is fairly straight forward to setup and to tune, especially on newer model cars with return-les fuel systems, or difficult to crack computers that make it difficult to upgrade (and properly tune) a much larger supercharger setup. Nitrous oxide fuel delivery can be set-up totally independently from the OEM ECU and fuel system and thus makes nitrous a possible application for German cars with stubborn computers.

4- This is a racer technique... most cars seem to perform better during the winter months because the air is cooler, horsepower is elevated, and the tracks although cold, can be prepared for traction and will heat up enough during the night to allow for traction and to give people the ability to exploit the cold dense air to post their best times of the year. As the weather gets warmer, traction increases because the asphalt is warm and sticky, but horsepower is reduced due to warmer, less dense air. Typically racers find that their cars vary in their quarter mile performance by as much as a half a second between their summer tune and their winter tune, especially if you're using a supercharger or turbocharger that compresses (and further heats) the incoming air.

The solution to on-track consistency, racers have found, is to combine the use of nitrous oxide (which is summer friendly) with forced induction (superchargers and turbochargers) which are winter friendly. In the summer time, the outside temperature is high, and so the nitrous bottle pressure is maintained at a high level above 1100 psi. This allows for a generous nitrous flow rate under the sustained pressure (even without a bottle heater) which gives great summer performance for nitrous assisted cars. While in the winter, the outside temperatures drop significantly, the nitrous in the bottle contracts and the bottle pressure drops, subsequently, the nitrous flow rate drops and nitrous assisted cars show worse performance in the winter times.

The complete opposite is true for supercharged cars that produce great horsepower in the winter from compressing cool dense air, and poor horsepower in the summer heat. When you combine these two power adders you get pretty flat and consistent horsepower production year round because the supercharger shines when the nitrous is weak, and the nitrous shines when the supercharger is weak, and thus together, they give consistent power deliver year round.

Pre-cautions:

Now we have to consider that nitrous oxide is an oxidizer and thus not only does it increase the amount of air and fuel combusting in the cylinder, but it also produces a faster moving flame front due to the oxidizer properties of the nitrous oxide. This means that additional timing retard, great octane fuel, and possibly colder spark plugs will be required to run spray on a supercharged car. 

Furthermore, because of its cooling effect, a 100hp shot on a supercharged Camaro can very easily put down OVER 120 rear wheel horsepower of additional power. This means that the 'out of the box' jetting of a nitrous kit may not be adequate on a supercharged car and you'd have to make sure to monitor and possibly increase the fuel jetting to match the final horsepower figure of your car). Last but not least, if you're running a 500hp supercharged car with an additional 120hp of nitrous oxide injection, then you must make sure that your fuel delivery (fuel pump and fuel lines) are able to flow the total amount of fuel required to deliver 620hp.

Applications scenarios:

1- You have a car like mine, a 2005 C230 kompressor that comes with a 230hp limited Eaton MP45. ECU on the car is a Siemens ECU that very few people know how to tune, and the fuel system uses a return-less setup with an in-tank fuel pressure regulator. With this kind of setup all forms of dry nitrous injection are out of the question because we can neither compensate for fuel through flashing the factory ECU, nor can we elevate fuel pressure during the nitrous injection because the fuel pressure regulator is in-accessible....

Recommended kit:

A wet nitrous injection kit that injects both fuel and nitrous oxide from the injection nozzle.

Injection location:

After the supercharger, after the intercooler, and into the intake manifold of the car.

Maximum recommended injection:

25% of the original total power figure which corresponds to around a 50 hp shot of nitrous on our example.

Expected final horsepower:

60 to 65 wheel horsepower and possible about 130 ft-lbs of additional torque!

2- You have a car that has an accessible fuel pressure regulator, or an ECU that can be re-flashed for nitrous oxide or a 'dual tune' setup. In this case it is recommended to use a dry nitrous kit for two reasons:

First: Dry kits are safer on supercharged cars (as long as the fuel delivery through the injectors or raised fuel pressure is adequate) because they hold a reduced chance of intake backfires because the intake manifold is dry of fuel.

Second: Dry nitrous injection contains no fuel, and so we don't need to worry about fuel falling out of suspension from the injected air. This means that we no longer have to spray the nitrous right before the intake manifold and we now have the option to move the point of injection much farther back. Spraying nitrous BEFORE the intercooler, right after the supercharger gives the nitrous stream more time and more contact with the compressed air coming out of the supercharger which results in more cooling and further increased horsepower.

Recommended kit:

A dry nitrous injection kit that injects only nitrous oxide from the injection nozzle.

Injection location:

After the supercharger, before or after the intercooler and not necessarily right at the intake manifold of the car.

Maximum recommended injection:

25% of the original total power figure which corresponds to around a 50 hp shot of nitrous.

Expected final horsepower:

70-75 wheel horsepower and possible about 130 ft-lbs of additional torque!

3- You have a car that has an accessible fuel pressure regulator, or an ECU that can flashed for nitrous oxide or a 'dual tune' setup. You also want to make as much horsepower as possible from your nitrous...

In this case it is recommended to use a dry nitrous kit injecting before the supercharger. As we mentioned in our articles on twin charging (combining turbochargers with superchargers for added performance), when two 'chargers' are chained in series where one charger feeds the next, then the two pressure ratios of the charger combine because the second charger compresses air that is already compressed by the first. For example two turbochargers set for a 1.5 pressure ratio (or 7 psi of boost), running in sequential mode will result in a final pressure ratio of 2.25 bar (or 18psi of boost) which is more than the 'expected' 14psi that is the sum of the two boost levels.

Similarly, injecting nitrous oxide before the supercharger, delivers already compressed air. This is true weather we are talking about nitrous being compressed because it has twice the oxygen concentration as normal air or we're talking about the nitrous cooling and compressing the incoming air. The final amount of compression observed by the supercharger inlet will vary depending on the ratio of incoming air to the size of the nitrous shot, and can result in an increase in boost of between 0.5 to 2.5 psi!

This boost increase is in addition to the power increase of the nitrous oxide injection and so it can be an additional 5 to 25 hp.

Recommended kit:

A dry nitrous injection kit that injects only nitrous oxide from the injection nozzle.

Injection location:

Before the supercharger inlet.

Maximum recommended injection:

25% of the original total power figure which corresponds to around a 50 hp shot of nitrous.

Expected final horsepower:

75-100 wheel horsepower and possible about 160 ft-lbs of additional torque!

Things to avoid:

1- No matter where you setup the nitrous injection, make sure not to spray nitrous into your MAS air flow sensor or your intake air temperature sensor. These temperature dependent sensors, tell the ECU to advance the timing in colder conditions. As we mentioned earlier, nitrous is an oxidizer that increases the speed of travel of the combustion event and thus requires maintained (if not retarded) ignition timing compared to a supercharged only setup. Avoid spraying on these temperature sensitive sensors to prevent accidental timing advance from occurring.

2- Avoid spraying a wet kit (fuel) before your supercharger, as the wet fuel mist will damage the supercharger rotors and strip their coatings.

3- Make sure you check your air fuel ratio on the nitrous and don't stick to the 'out of the box' air to fuel settings with the kit. For example an extra 2.5 psi in your intake may or may not be compensated by your stock ECU and so depending on how well the ECU reacts you will have to adjust the fuel jetting on the nitrous kit. 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2542586

Tips To Fit Nitrous Kit by RB Innovations

Nitrous oxide is also known as laughing gas and it is compressed in liquid form and injected into the intake of your car engine. Nitrous is a trouble-free and effective way of getting HUGE amounts of power and torque. In few cases you can add 100 BHP and this is 10 times cooler than air and when injected into your air intake the retort is AMAZING.

A number of people feel that a nitrous kit will injure your engine but in fact if utilized properly it cools your engine and works wonders.

Here are the some effortless instructions to an added 100 BHP and how fit a nitrous kit.

1. First of all you require buying a nitrous oxide kit and I recommend fitting it yourself as it will save you a lot of cash. You can buy it online by searching nitrous oxide kits for sale.

When you got yourself a nitrous kit you will see that you have a bottle and some jets and leads etc. 

and the nitrous bottle are usually mounted in the boot. Check the kits instructions and make certain it is mounted the proper way as it is vitally essential for it to work correctly. Once you have the brackets in position attach the bottle to them using the straps given.

2. Run the delivery pipe from your boot down the internal sill and through the bulkhead to the engine bay. This is just concealed under the carpet and slide the pipe end fitting and olive onto the ending of the pipe then push the end of the pipe into the bottle valve and squeeze the fitting.

3. Securely accumulate the solenoids using the brackets supplied to the front of the engine bay or a cool area below the bonnet near to where the injector will be installed. The solenoids are color code: Basically blue for nitrous and red for fuel.

4. By using your car instruction booklet identify the fuel supply line (usually found on the bulkhead). Fit the t piece into the fuel stroke making sure all connections are locked and leak free.

5. Connect the novel fuel line from the t piece into the input solenoid using the fittings that are provided in the nitrous kit. 

Likewise connect the nitrous delivery line to the input on the blue nitrous solenoid. 

6. Now attach the blue and red LINES to the solenoid outputs, prepared to be connected to the injector and make certain that the connections are secure.

7. The next step is fitting the injector into the air inlet duct, immediately BEFORE the throttle body.

8. Take of the bulky air inlet duct just before the throttle body, and drill a hole for every injector as close to the throttle plate as probable. Make definite the holes are good and smooth to shun any air leaks or nitrous leaks out of your nitrous kit.

9. Now add the injector after sliding over the spacer and screw on the apex hat retainer from the within of the air hose.

10. Refurbishment the air inlet hose back to the throttle body and cut the red and blue lines as short as feasible and connect them to the injector firmly using the fittings supplied.

11. So that the system is just active at occupied throttle a micro switch needs to be mounted on the throttle body and for this use the mounting plate supplied.

12. The micro switch must be placed and place so that it is activated on full throttle. 

13. The next thing to be fitted is the system arming switch and you need to find the engine live supply using your HAYNES manual and inquisitive around the fuse box: Also make sure the battery is off. 

14. Now attach your ignition live feed to one side of the switch, then connect on an additional wire to the other side and run it through the engine compartment anywhere near the solenoids. Try and employ existing holes in the bulkhead to make this thing easier. 

15. At the solenoids, rip the live feed into two wires and run one to each solenoid positive terminal and attach the earth wire to each remaining terminal and joint them together to one side of the micro switch. Connect one more wire to the other side of the switch and link it to an existing good earthing point below the bonnet so that there you have it!!! 

It may look somewhat confusing but i can assure you it is actually simple and to know more about nitrous injection systems or nitrous injection kits visit us.