Chevy 350 - Nuke It!

Another thing we learned was that we needed a little more fuel than the Nitrousworks sheet suggested. This is probably due to the fact that this Nitrousworks kit is intended to be used on an engine that could actually accept all that nitrous and fuel and make power with it-our engine couldn't. But we found that by increasing the fuel jet, we could keep the spark plugs alive long enough to make some power. We learned all this at the cost of something close to three sets of spark plugs and well over 30 pounds of nitrous.

Once Steve finally got a handle on the nitrous tuning, we found that a 250hp shot from the one big solenoid on the kit was the most our engine could accept without shooting flame out the intake or devouring spark plugs. Our last best shot before the ring lands again disintegrated was a rewarding 600 lb-ft of torque at 4,900 rpm and 570 hp at 5,200. If you note the rather low rpm where peak horsepower occurs, it's a major clue to why this engine wouldn't make any more power no matter how much nitrous we put to it. Adding more nitrous resulted in a small cloud of air and fuel that hovered over the carburetor inlet at around peak power. This is a phenomenon called "stand-off" where the inlet manifold is so pressurized by reversion pulses in the intake that air and fuel are forced back up the carburetor venturis, collecting in a cloud at the point where the pressure equalizes. When we saw that, we knew we were done.

So what did we learn? We originally just wanted to break something in an automotive version of Punk'd. But what we discovered, and what the nitrous companies later informed us, is that achieving a 100 percent power increase from a relatively stock engine is very difficult. Since the engine made 330 hp in its normally aspirated state, we managed to get close by adding a total of 240 hp to come up with our peak of 570 hp. But even here, the engine didn't survive, and we again nipped a ring land even with the stronger forged pistons.

Since our engine has survived this long, we've decided not to put it out to pasture just yet. We've got some other plans for our junkyard dog. Who knows, with a decent set of heads and a different cam and intake, we might just see how much grunt this dog can pump out. Stay tuned.

Parts ListAll prices are from www.summitracing.com