Triumphrat

boyzee

I was reading a thread about the thruxton AI and how a lot of riders are throwing it away.

Thinking aloud I thought about cars and turbo/super charged, More fuel mixing with air gives more bang.

What about 100% pure oxygen surely would also with standard fuel
without all the mechanical guff associated with better performance...

Has anyone heard of trying it or is there something already on the market.

Surely a pressurised cylinder would be easy to administer. Like I say just thinking aloud.

Snakeoil

Why do you think they put nitrous oxide in unlimited hydros, some street racers and other hot rods. Because it provides significant increases in HP. It comes however at a cost. It's not packing more fuel/air into the chamber, which is what supercharging does, it raises the combustion temps so you get much more expansion for the same amount of fuel/air. Higher temps means more wear and tear on the engine. Unlimited hydros with the old aircraft engines only use that nitrous button to accelerate out of a corner and may not use it every time because it seriously cooks the engine.

If you were to inject pure O2, it would more than likely create combustion temps that the combustion chamber bits could not handle. It could potentially cause some of the bits themselves to combust.

regards,
Rob

JohnA

Neat oxygen is usually stored in bottles at over 2000psi and is extremely dangerous stuff - mere contact with oil, grease or petrol can cause spontaneous combustion. There are all sorts of rules & regulations about handling it, to the point where the regulator threads must never be greased before fitting etc.

Somebody must've tried it somewhere in the world though - I should think their engine got oxidised very rapidly from the inside out!

A pity really, as if it could be made to work, you could theoretically get a 500% power increase!

boyzee

Thanks for replies Snakeoil and John.
When writing this I had a sneaking suspicion Nitrous was similar but reading Snakeoil's reply it is different again.
I was thinking along the lines of more efficient "air management" haveing due regard to small airboxes/filters etc.
Whether its medical O2 or industrial O2 surely you could rig it up to "inject" when inlet valve opens. I mean raising O2 content from 20.9 % (atmosphere) to say 40-50 %.

John correctly pointed out the instability and in the assumption of pressure being 2000 psi. We normally have 200 bar ( medical rescusitator which is'nt huge in the big scheme of things (along with left hand thread for all O2).

Snakeoil , Like you say super chargeing has similar effect (does it ?) as O2 will be 20.9% or less after already been ignited through the chambers. I was thinking of the "idea" of pressurised O2 "injecting itself through Opening/closing valves...

As always respect any input. Cheers in advance

shabashow

Looking at this thread, my initial thoughts, for what there worth is I think you'll also hit a limit as to how much fuel you can get into the combustion chamber, as well. 5 times more oxidant will require 5 times more fuel, so as well as needing an O2 injection system, you would need a fuel injection system. I wouldn't want a backfire through a carb if you were running on oxygen!

DerryUK

Real Classic magazine did an article recently about nitrous and Triumphs. Have a look at issue 102
http://www.realclassic.co.uk/aboutfi....html#issue102

__________________
DerryUK

'69 T100S being rebuilt - very s-l-o-w-l-y
VFR800 VTEC

Snakeoil

This is a key point and I eluded to it when I mentioned fuel/air ratio. You cannot lean out the mixture to the point where it will not combust properly by adding gobs of O2. This is why supercharging works because it increases the airflow thru the carb and hence the fuel flow as well.

So, as Shabashow said, if you are going to inject O2 or Nitrous directly into the intake where it will have no effect on fuel flow, then you need to find a way to increase fuel flow. That would mean putting in much larger jetting for carburetors and would also mean running the gas injection all the time or run fuel injections with a computer that would control both for the proper mixture as well as deal with detonation and such.

It's an interesting thought, but if injecting pure O2 into an engine was a cheap way to make extra ponies, every professional drag racing team would be doing it. I don't think any of them use nitrous either because of the beating the engine takes.

regards,
Rob

shabashow

You can take the boy out of chemistry, but you cant take the chemistry out of the boy;-)

Stanislao

Combustion in pure oxygen results in much higher temperatures. This is because the inert gasses that comprise 80% of the air we breath act as a sort of coolant, buffer gas to use the technical term. While this significantly reduces the efficiency, the temperature is kept below the melting point of steel.

Rocket engines, the only engines I can think of that run on pure oxygen, have to cool the combustion chamber by circulating the fuel around it before injecting. Most large engines also cool the exhaust nozzle, though some simply melt in a controlled manner.

Nitrous oxide also functions as a coolant. When heated, it decomposes into nitrogen and oxygen in their diatomic forms, absorbing a significant amount of heat in the process. Because the gas resulting from decomposition is 2/3 nitrogen and 1/3 oxygen, you also get a buffer.

If you really want to do this, you will need to know the gas laws, familiarize yourself with molarity, and basically work through a college intro to chemistry book. The math is not nearly as nasty as it looks and you don’t have to worry about electron shells or any of the harder stuff.

lovecuba

Interesting power enhancement.

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