Thread: Nitrous

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For better or worse, two weeks ago I decided to put a flathead into my race car and see if I can make it go fast. Now I've done a few engines in my life and won a few races, but only small block Chevys and some foreign stuff, never with a flathead (except Briggs and Stratton about 40 years ago).

I want to run un-blown and still make power. It seems that breathing and cooling are the two big issues. I believe Nitrous would "force" the breathing issue and Methanol would help keep things cool while a Doug King lower end and aftermarket crank, rods and pistons would keep everything together.

My questions, please: Has anyone run Nitrous in a flathead? If so, how much? Carbureted or injected? Where did you put the nozzles? How did you deal with the excess heat? What bore and stroke were you able to run?

I'm sure I'll have a few more ??'s as the weeks go by, but that's enough for now.

Thanks,

I wish I could be of more help to you, but I'll give you all I can on it. In the very late '50's or very early '60's, I had a long conversation with Barney Navarro. Barney was one of the pioneers at the lakes and in drag racing. At the time, Barney was absolutely bonkers about nitrous oxide. I had never heard of it before and he sounded like a missionary. Barney had a lot of miles under his belt at the time and to be honest, he was almost scary about it. He showed me a roadster he had with a 3/8 X 3/8 flathead and a nitrous system installed. I don't remember a damn thing about it except that there was strange copper tubing on it.

Barney had a shop on San Fernando Road, either in Glendale, CA or L.A. He manufactured speed equipment for flatheads. I would suggest that you contact Vic Edelbrock Jr. or Ed Iskendarian (If he's still alive) about it. I'm sure Vic Jr. was involved in his dad's company at the time. All those guys that were producing equipment knew each other and one of them might actually remember something about it. They were all very competative and I'm sure they all kept up with whatever each of them were playing with. It's also possible that Barney had kids that might know something about it.

I wish I had paid more attention to it but try to understand what it was like to have a guy telling you that laughing gas made a car run like it was on Nitro. If I were to make a guess, I would say it was probably injected into an air cleaner.

I'd do a search of all the manufacturers of nitrous systems and contact them. Somebody must have done some latter day experimentation with it on a flathead. It seems that I remember reading about a Bonneville effort in the past couple of years that involved flatheads and nitrous.

Hilborn sells them ready to go..... www.hilborninjection.com

Sorry for the tardy reply. In order:

Oldman2: Had dinner with Ed last month. He was doing okay then, but no news since about a month ago.
Techinspector1: Thanks for the input. Like DUhhh... why didn't i think of that?
Hambiskit: What is the "them" that Hillborn sells? Didn't see any NOS stuff on their site, but I can be educated. Mostly electronic ($$$) and mechanical fuel injection stuff, but no NOS parts.

Thanks, all. It's looking like fill the block solid with aluminum, run coolant only in the head. Run the NOS nozzels from inside under the intake manifold (better angle to valve) and get an EFI kit someplace (Hilborn's is $5,500+ YIKES)

2by4 Call RPM Performance Auto Parts @ 1-877-354-3812. They do alot of flatties and have helped me out on my last build up. They have alot of nitrous systems, and maybe they can put you in the right direction.