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,

Why do you see steel lines from distribution blocks to nozzles. It gets real crowded with multiple stages and I was wondering if there are any flex line alternatives.

Also, are all the lines supposed to be of equal length?

Mike

Great question Mike, now lets see if I can give you a great answer.

Years ago when nitrous racing was still an infant and one Fogger system plumbed on a manifold was SCARY, the simplest, cleanest way to go from distribution blocks to nozzles was 3/16 or 1/8 inch steel line. Not real expensive and a good way to hold up the solenoids on each side of engine as now there were four solenoids instead of two. This way it was not necessary to build brackets to get in the way of throttle linkages, etc.

Then came larger cubic inch engines and the need for more nitrous, so a set of plates was the answer and this required mounting more solenoids on the manifold and using braided line from solenoids to plates. Then came the new Pro Mod class and it became time for the third stage and enter another nozzle system. So the first stage nozzle system was moved lower on the manifold and another system plumbed above the first. So we are out of room and need a solution.

OK, the inside of the runner is available so letís plumb in there and we can have three nozzle systems instead of two. The reason that braided line was never used is that even the dash three line was much larger in outside diameter than the steel line and provided no support to hold solenoids. It had been tried, but proved to be more trouble than benefit and looked terrible also.

If you look at modern day multiple system plumbing you will see that instead of the lines lying flat across the manifold they are plumbed at a taper down from the distribution block to the nozzles, which allows for shorter and more even length lines.

There have been many discussions, even arguments about whether the lines need to be equal lengths from the distribution blocks to the nozzles but bottom line is that it does not seem to matter. Nitrous pulls the fuel off the end of the nozzle and it all seems to work out as it sprays into the manifold runner anyway.

Thanks again for the question.

Wady Hamam

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