NITROUS SAFETY

Found This article on Competition Plus .com

THERMOS ATTACKS THE DANGERS OF NITROUS OXIDE
Written by Bobby Bennett Tuesday, 15 February 2011 09:00




Mike Thermos believes the process of injecting nitrous oxide into automotive applications can be both a safe and efficient way to gain cheap horsepower. However, lately, Thermos, the founder of Nitrous Oxide Systems and renowned nitrous expert, admits he’s seen good intentions turn dangerous from those taking unsafe liberties with nitrous oxide.

Thermos is afraid those unsafe practices can quickly change what has been a relatively safe practice into a game of Russian roulette if they aren’t stopped.

“There have been a lot of issues lately with a lack of knowledge when working with nitrous oxide,” Thermos claims. “My goal and objective is to educate racers of what nitrous oxide can do if not handled properly. We just want to educate racers how to stay within the envelope of what nitrous oxide is supposed to do.”

Thermos says his mission is to let racers know that nitrous bottles, while helpful to elapsed time and speed, can in a split second become a thrust rocket or create a deadly explosion.

From the time Thermos became involved with the automotive application of nitrous oxide he’s been an advocate for safe usage. However, a series of accidents. including last season's accidental death of ADRL Pro Nitrous team owner Mike Walker, has caused him to ramp up his efforts.

Walker was fatally injured when a nitrous bottle was accidentally dropped, breaking part of the valve during a race at South Georgia Motorsports Park in Valdosta, Ga. The pressure of the damaged bottle made it a literal rocket which struck Walker.

“I just felt we had to get more aggressive with safety education,” Thermos said. “The issue with this incident was more of a thrust issue than a bottle blowing up.”

While Walker’s incident wasn’t necessarily a matter of executing improper nitrous safety, it does go a long way towards proving Thermos’ point about the potential volatility of the product.

Witnesses have confirmed the deadly bottle, after bouncing around the pit area, still had enough thrust to launch an estimated 600 feet in the air and fly over the pits before landing in the nearby oval track facility, nearly an eighth-mile away.

Following the accident, Thermos immediately went to work, developing a special gauge with a safety pin to help prevent a repeat of the Walker accident.

“We had to develop something where even if you took a hammer and knocked the valve off, you’d hardly have enough thrust to really hurt someone,” Thermos confirmed.

Thermos admits he’s heard more than his fair share of nitrous bottle horrors including one instance where an exploding bottle actually lifted the roof off of a house. In another instance, an exploding bottle nearly blew off the back-half of a car.

“There’s tremendous energy in those bottles,” said Thermos. “What can one minute look like your race car can in a split-second look like a (bomb damaged hulk) out of the Iraq War.”

After the point has been made as to how dangerous nitrous can be, Thermos is adamant that certain practices have to stop - namely heating nitrous bottles with a torch. The practice was generally believed to help racers get better pressure and performance.

Thermos says this is not the case and often the lesson learned can be deadly.

Thermos warns that you can either heed his advice or the government will become involved. According to Thermos, threats have already been made.

“The cryogenics industry is really watching us,” Thermos warned, speaking of at least two government agencies. “You can anneal a bottle after a number of times by putting a torch on the bottle. At 350 degrees, that bottle will start to soften. I don’t know how many times it will take, but the bottle will actually explode on you.”

What actually got the government involved?

An episode of Pinks featured one of the contestants heating the bottle with a propane torch and it wasn’t long before Thermos, being a name long associated with automotive nitrous applications, received a phone call with a warning.

“They’ve said they will step in and police it if we don’t,” Thermos recounted. “I will say this; their exact quote was ‘you won’t like what we will do.’ They watch television just like you do.”

Government intervention, Thermos believes, could push the price of a nitrous system upwards into the $6000 range for a simple kit.

“Every hose would have to be certified and sent to a lab,” Thermos provided as possible examples. “The same would hold true for every fitting. Just like aircraft, it would take you right out of the market. Nitrous racing would pretty much be done at that point.”

And that point, Thermos adds, ought to make every nitrous racer as apprehensive about the ramifications as he is.

I find most of this to be bull sh*t. I have heated bottles in the lanes for 25 years and nobody has ever said a word to me. Ever seen a Pro Mod race…better turn the ole head cause the pros will be lighting them up. I hate that this happened in ADRL but it had nothing to do with heating a bottle with a torch (my brother in law was only a couple of trailers over). I was at a race once and a blower car blew up on the line, throwing parts everywhere and could have easily killed someone near (me!)…do you ban the blower cars…I don’t think so. I didn’t just get lucky for the last 25 years. There is a safe way to do this. Plus when Mike Thermos is talking he is probably trying to sell something. Fire away folks.
• I have rigged a bottle blanket up and have a lawnmower battery with quick disconnects to heat my bottle in the lanes this year. I will let you know how it works.
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valleydawg wrote:I find most of this to be bull sh*t. I have heated bottles in the lanes for 25 years and nobody has ever said a word to me. Ever seen a Pro Mod race…better turn the ole head cause the pros will be lighting them up. I hate that this happened in ADRL but it had nothing to do with heating a bottle with a torch (my brother in law was only a couple of trailers over). I was at a race once and a blower car blew up on the line, throwing parts everywhere and could have easily killed someone near (me!)…do you ban the blower cars…I don’t think so. I didn’t just get lucky for the last 25 years. There is a safe way to do this. Plus when Mike Thermos is talking he is probably trying to sell something. Fire away folks.
• I have rigged a bottle blanket up and have a lawnmower battery with quick disconnects to heat my bottle in the lanes this year. I will let you know how it works.
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Your battery and blanket will work well as I used the same thing last year.
Mike Thermos's bottle valve would have helped the man that was killed at the ADRL event. I dont think the story of the ADRL mishap was trying to tie what happened to over heating bottles with a torch.
There was another story on competition plus about a man who lost his leg to an expoding bottle that had been over taxed by heat. (remember 350 degrees is achievable with a cheap heat gun)

i think it would take alot of heating to get abottle that hot i heated with a torch for years and u could touch the bottle the hold time u only need to raise the temp to 85 degree to get 900 psi hell gas is much more of a danger then nitrous but the gov. is making the money there
dragweek quickest street rod
2009 2010

Weather or not you believe the above stories is up to you....but in my mind id error on the side of caution.
Example...for years id heard/read warnings on always hooking up the negative cable last on a battery to prevent sparking.....to wear eye protection when working w car batterys blah blah blah....
Well let me tell ya........once i got battery acid all over my face/body (thankfully not in my eyes ) from an exploding battery (i was reconnecting after it had been charged) im now a firm believer and advocate of the safer practices. Keep in mind, i had done the exact same thing hundreds of time before w. no negative consequences at all.......

Seems to me what he's pointing out should be common knowledge/safety practices.......would you go heating up the oxygen bottle on your cutting torch just to make it perfom better in cold weather? Doubtful...

Maybe the next darwin award winner will be one of you guys whos heating his nitrous bottles w a torch.

dirt_worker wrote:Weather or not you believe the above stories is up to you....but in my mind id error on the side of caution.
Example...for years id heard/read warnings on always hooking up the negative cable last on a battery to prevent sparking.....to wear eye protection when working w car batterys blah blah blah....
Well let me tell ya........once i got battery acid all over my face/body (thankfully not in my eyes ) from an exploding battery (i was reconnecting after it had been charged) im now a firm believer and advocate of the safer practices. Keep in mind, i had done the exact same thing hundreds of time before w. no negative consequences at all.......

Seems to me what he's pointing out should be common knowledge/safety practices.......would you go heating up the oxygen bottle on your cutting torch just to make it perfom better in cold weather? Doubtful...

Maybe the next darwin award winner will be one of you guys whos heating his nitrous bottles w a torch.

Very well put! I had one of my best friends burn up from a nitrous fire, he just installed it and then hooked up a battery charger and it sparked and the and the nitours blew up burning him alive, it took about 10mins. for him to die. Bad bad deal..I will never have it on my car.

On top of possibly annealing random areas of the aluminum from over heating it, using a propane torch on nitrous bottles can get you hurt because of how quick & drastic the cold-to-hot localized changes can happen to a small area of the rigid aluminum bottle. If nitrous bottles were made of steel then using a propane torch to heat them wouldn't be as big of a safety issue.

Using an elec bottle blanket or hot water bath to heat the aluminum bottles is safer because the heating is done evenly over a much larger area of the aluminum bottle surface, more evenly controlling the aluminum's rate of expansion. A lot of the guys I see at the track aren't shooting for just 900lbs of bottle pressure, they are wanting to have about 1100lbs sitting at the front of the staging lanes just as they are about to get the signal to fire. That's hard to achieve accurately/consistently pass after pass with a propane torch, but easy to do with an elec bottle blanket quick connected to an extra battery on the tow vehicle (similar to valleydawg's setup).

And as far as the dangers of dropping a nitrous bottle & knocking the valve off goes, the same thing can happen to any pressurized bottle we might deal with any/every day (fire system, C02, nitrogen, cutting torch, Mig/Tig welder, etc, etc). That means this part of the problem isn't a "blame nitrous" deal, it's really an "any damn pressurized container is fukkn dangerous" deal. So we should watch how the fukk we handle any pressurized bottle.

I have heated my bottles with a torch many times. Not saying it's the thing to do, but after a few minutes of direct heat from the torch, the bottle is always cool to the touch. I suspect that the heat from the torch is very efficiently passed from the aluminum to the liquid inside, therefore preventing the annealing of the bottle.

Heating an empty bottle would be a different story.

Greg

Theres a right way and a wrong way to do things, and heating a bottle with a torch is the wrong way... Bottle heaters, blankets, and water tanks are cheap compared to the damage that can be caused by using the wrong tool for the job. I have a NX fire and Ice heater, and I literally roll on property flip the switch and the bottle is at 1000 psi in 20 minutes, and will stay there all day, even switching bottles between rounds Ive never had any issues, so where is the need for a torch anyway.