Drag Racing Online

Ed. Note: Wady Hamam or Pro Mod Wad as he is known in the business is NOS's main nitrous Guru. He has been involved in nitrous oxide injection almost from its inception especially with the Pro Mod division.. He is originally from the Buffalo, New York area and has been involved in all types of racing from flat track motorcycles to fuel dragsters. In his wasted youth he even raced a fuel funny car powered by a blown and injected small block Ford! He and his brother campaigned a front motored Top Fuel dragster and lost a race against Don Garlits at the now closed Niagara Falls Dragway. His advice about nitrous problems is highly sought after but he is hard to get to. He has agreed to answer one question every couple of weeks for Drag Racing Online readers. Email your questions to: promodwad@racingnetsource.com, and he will answer the question he finds most intriguing.

Dear Pro Mod Wad,

My name is Anders Svensson and I'm writing to you from Sweden. I would like your recommendation on what kind of nitrous system I should use and how much nitrous I can put in my engine without changing camshaft, etc. and I also wonder what you think about nitrous progressive controller and if that could be something I could use.

I have an ex-Pro Stock engine, 499 c.i. built in the USA with 4.58 bore and 3.82 stroke, bowwtie block, tall deck and EPD heads. It leaves 1040 hp on gas with carburetors and now the carbs are removed and an Enderle fuel injection system is installed that delivers alcohol with nozzles in each runner on the sheet metal intake instead. That works perfect, even with the same camshaft…and it has awesome torque.

But now I'm thinking about nitrous, but don't want to change the camshaft. The reason why I do not want to change the camshaft is that I'm running in two different classes: 1) Compeition Eliminator A/A in Sweden without nitrous, for which I need the engine's maximum power and 2) a Super Mod class that I'm going to run with nitrous and try to go under 7.0.

I have a '90 Corvette Funny Car, ex-Richard Hartman USA, and a strong powerglide and a custom made Huges converter for Funny/Dragster.

What kind of nitrous system do you recommend and how much nitrous can I put in?

Any thoughts you may have are welcome.
Anders Svensson

Hi Anders,

Thank you for the great letter. You did not mention in your engine specs any compression ratio, so I must believe it is around 15:1, as are most Pro Stock engines, and since you are using alcohol as primary fuel.

My suggestion would be the NOS Pro Shot Fogger system on your manifold. I would also suggest a separate fuel system with racing gasoline for the nitrous system. This will allow you to get maximum power from the engine and an adjustable amount of power from the nitrous system.

You will need to jet low horsepower settings in the Fogger system so you can figure out your tune-up with nitrous.

The Pro Stock cam and compression ratio will definitely limit the amount of nitrous you can use, but I believe you will be able to get to 200-250 horsepower without problems.

Working with timing retards and fuel pressure will allow you to get optimum tune-ups with the nitrous, and since your engine uses alcohol for the primary fuel, there will be some forgiveness in the cool burn of the alcohol.

One other thing you might need to consider is that when you run the Super Mod class, you should run a tighter converter as the nitrous will flash a high stall converter and waste a lot of the available performance of the nitrous system.

Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress.