1978VetteOwner

The other day I was contemplating a ram air setup that I could build for my '78 when it hit me: why not just pump pure oxygen into the air cleaner assembly while keeping the stock setup.
I have already devised a setup using a small tank and a controllable valve. I just want to know if anyone has ever heard of anyone doing this before? What would be some of the pro's and con's of dumping oxygen into the air intake. Let me know what you think before I hook this up and potentially destroy my engine.

duntovlives

it is a great concept. kinda like a blower or turbo. just make sure you dont lean it out too much. just curious, what have you devised to pump the air in? it will need to a lot to notice.

Larry B.

Because oxygen is very easily ignited it may react as though you were running extremely LOW octane fuel. In effect canceling the effect of octane ingreidents in the fuel . Oxygen and oil instantly explode and are a very dangerous combination.

MikeC

And that is why we use Nitrous.

duntovlives

i just re-read the statement he made on the original post. this time i noticed the word "pure" before the word oxygen. hmmm, that is interesting. y not just NO2? enhance the oxygen you already have.

Aflac

Neat idea, HOWEVER, I would be terrified of the concept of a leak. If you get oil and oxygen together, your car will be no more.... :nono: :nono:

WeasleVette454

As an aircraft mechanic, one of the first things that are taught about cockpit entry is the possibility of an "oxygen enriched environment". As the others have stated, especially when coming in contact with oil, our car's life blood, things tend to get out of hand when oxygen and oil get mixed.

HEY...I have an idea. Maybe there could be a new urban legend story about a guy who strapped oxygen tanks to his car and when he pushed the injection button he accellerated at such great speeds that his tires melted while riding his brakes and he disintegrated into a mountain side and found only hair, teeth, and fingernails!!!
Wait...that one's already taken :lol: :lol:

Cool idea the oxygen injection. I'm sure it would work. Heck, nitros does. Sure would be interesting to hear the outcome, though. Nitros just augments the combustion environment. I wonder if you ran oxygen, it would require less fuel?

Weasle :D

LemansBlue68

Ever seen pure Acetylene burn in air??? Ever seen Acetylene burn in the presence of Oxygen???

The reason everyone uses Nitrous rather than pure Oxygen is that pure oxygen will cause the flame temperatures of the combusting gasoline to be MUCH too high. Nitrous also provides Oxygen to the combustion process, but in a more controlled state so that the flame temperatures are lower. Also with Nitrous, additional fuel is added as well to keep the mixture from becoming too lean and , the whole objective with Nitrous is to burn more fuel with every power stroke than the engine could ingest on its own by running in a naturally aspirated state. Nitrous also increases the burn rate of the fuel so ignition timing must be retarded accordingly. I'm afraid significant levels Oxygen would behave accordingly, even to the point that the fuel "explodes" rather than burning at a controlled and consistent rate.

You could try Oxygen injection it but I wouldn't recommend experimenting on your valued Corvette. A lot of engineering goes in to the design of Nitrous systems to make them work properly. There is a reason Nitrous is the oxidant of choice. Think about it, Oxygen is readily available at welding supplies and is cheap. If all the racers were making Oxygen work for them why would they mess with Nitrous?

If I haven't talked you out of your plan, GOOD LUCK.

zwede

The Germans experimented with pure oxygen injection in their fighter planes during WW2. They needed a boost at high altitude and for rapid altitude increases. They found out the hard way that in a pure oxygen athosphere almost eveything burns. Several metals will spontanously ignite! They then figured out that if they added some nitrogen to form nitrous oxide they got all the benefits of extra oxygen without torching their planes.

Years later in the 60's both the Russians and Americans figured it would be a good idea to use pure oxygen athmospheres in their space craft. Both found out the hard way that the Germans were correct. Do a search for the early Apollo program to read about the tragic results. The russians lost even more men.

joe73vette

The key to nitrous is it doesn't release the oxygen until heated by compression. THerefore it's only there when needed. I'd be afraid that gasoline would start burning in the intake manifold with pure oxygen injection, or at the least during the compression stroke, like a diesel. Joe

pillowmeto

Ive been playing with the idea for about a year and a half. I figure get a good nitros system in the car. Nitros is N2O, oxygen is O2. O2 would be about 4-6 times more powerful than N2O. So fill your bottle with O2 and run a really really small shot, when you normally run a 150 run a 25 or 20. O2 should actually be cheaper too, not to mention you are using soo much less, and there is no residual nitrogen left around. What ive always dreamed of is a fuel injected small block built strong as hell with the intake run straight to a few large O2 bottles with enough air to keep the inatke at about 5 psi. Can you just imagine what that could do at the track? No one would be expecting it, but of course if anything went wrong KABOOM. Rember O2 is not explosive by itsself, just like N2O, it needs a fuel. rember fuel oxygen and spark, well oxygen wont sevre the place of oxygen and fuel. But still it can combust wioth other things. Also ive always dreamed of a small block w, the O2 system above, plus liquid hydrogen through the fuel injectors, i thing thats about 12 times more powerful than gaas and O2, and by gas and O2 i dont mean gas and regualr air, i mean liek the system listed above, id mount the engine upside down to let the water drain out of the valves easier, hey it doesnt need to be right side up then. But thats just a dream, it would be awsome, and about as dangerious as reentering the earths atmosphere in a life raft.

MAtt

garagedweller2

Don't risk it. You don't want to be like NASA's test pilots. :sad: :blueangel:

toddalin

Go ahead and borrow granny's tank when she's not looking and let us know how it goes. (I too had toyed with this idea in the past. Seems like you could just crack the valve at the air cleaner assembly for a slight enrichment, go up a few jets on the carb, and...) Now you know why the "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" went so fast (go granny, go granny, go granny go). ;)

Jvette73

You all know about the A.I.R pumps that pump air into the exhaust. How about re-plumbing it so it would pump the air into the intake instead. I dont really know if there would be anything to gain by doin that. How much air do those things pump anyway? Maybe you would gain the same amount as you lost to running the pump of the belt. Would it be worth a try?

boredsoIstrokedit

Pure O2 is EXTREMELY CORROSIVE. Pure O2 is one thing they use to etch glass. Furthermore to replacing your intake and pistons/rings/cyl walls periodically, you have the O2 IGNITING almost SPONTANIOUSLY with any petroleum, like oil, gas, whatever (you would have to introduce the two inside the cyl). To complicate things more is the possibility that you would split the O2 in compression similar to N2O, and be left with O. Which would be MUCH MUCH WORSE. You would be better off diluting O2 and just running a compressed bottle of AIR, and shooting that in, along with some extra fuel. Take a divers bottle and blast that in lower mixtures, just higher boosted. You would also have a significant cooling effect with that method. If you do it, make a video for your children first :D, and a video of the test run :D

If you don't like NOS, run nitromethane, but that makes nitric acid upon combustion (probably safer) You should be able to go as high as 25% without to much problem.

As far a LIQUID HYDROGEN???? Don't. Please. Don't. it is not as powerful as the gas per gram, but you can put a helluvalot more in each cyl., so yes, the power potential is there, but it cant be exploited safely.

If you insist on using liquid H2 and O2, make a liquid fuel rocket like the space shuttle. :smash: :smash:

boredsoIstrokedit

You don't always need spark, especially when you are dealing with pure O2, just a little bit of residual heat in the lines, intake, head, cyl....

Good example of the kind of thing that happens, expose phosphorous to air, and it ignites. Take a little O2 before you do it, and set up a bubbler through gasoline. Turn the valve and watch what happens if you add ANY HEAT. That should make you think.

duntovlives

ill have to agree, this is a quite interesting subject to read about. im starting to remember as a wee lad being reminded about the whole oil issue with O2. (like attepting to oil guages on a torch set) its something i have not givin any thought in many years. thanks for the rememinder. Kaboom! :eek:

427V8

:iagree:

Don't do it. Use Nitrous.
You get more power and live to tell about it!
I've heard of people oiling the pressure gauge on their oxygen tank . When they turn on the Oxygen the gauge explodes. It's caused by the heat generated by the little gears moving!

If you inject pure O2 into your manifold, it will burn the fricken engine up.

Just Say No to O2

Jim Shea

Just using gross arithmatic. For every revolution of the AIR pump it is putting out about 12 cubic inches of air. For every revolution of your engine you need 350/2 (or 454/2) cubic inches of air. Even if you overdrive the AIR pump by 10 to one. You still aren't putting out enough air to even keep up with the need of a 350 cubic inch small block.

Maybe a small motorcycle engine might be assisted by an Air Injection Reactor pump.

pillowmeto

yeah like i said hydrogen would be like reentering the earths atmosphere in a life raft. Once that first spark plug sparks there goes the block.

MAtt