R. Malik, refresh my memory please

Randy,

You're an old dog like me, but my first memory of nitrous use was in the mid-sixties and in Unlimited Hydroplanes. That's because I grew up here in Owensboro with Billy and Terry Sterrett and their dad (Bill Sr.) owned and drove hydroplanes such as the Miss Crazy Thing, and Miss Chrysler Crew. Later he drove others such as the Miss Budweiser for Bernie Little. Anyway, those engines were WW II surplus Rolls Royce Merlins, and the Allisons for fighter aircraft.

I know you were a Detroit kid and saw plenty of hydroplane racing on the Detroit River, (Gar Wood Memorial etc.) I remember watching them race here on the Ohio, and after they would make a turn and get straightened out, that they would sometimes hit the nitrous on the straightaways. I know that nitrous first got used in WW II in the fighter planes as a "oxygen supplement", because at the higher altitudes, the air was thin and it hurt the power of the engines. However,,,,,,,,I do not remember nitrous use in drag racing engines until sometime in the early eighties. Am I correct so far? Why do you think it took 15 - 20 years to become popular in drag racing engines?

Charlie Evans

Charlie

c.evans wrote:Randy,

You're an old dog like me, but my first memory of nitrous use was in the mid-sixties and in Unlimited Hydroplanes. That's because I grew up here in Owensboro with Billy and Terry Sterrett and their dad (Bill Sr.) owned and drove hydroplanes such as the Miss Crazy Thing, and Miss Chrysler Crew. Later he drove others such as the Miss Budweiser for Bernie Little. Anyway, those engines were WW II surplus Rolls Royce Merlins, and the Allisons for fighter aircraft.

I know you were a Detroit kid and saw plenty of hydroplane racing on the Detroit River, (Gar Wood Memorial etc.) I remember watching them race here on the Ohio, and after they would make a turn and get straightened out, that they would sometimes hit the nitrous on the straightaways. I know that nitrous first got used in WW II in the fighter planes as a "oxygen supplement", because at the higher altitudes, the air was thin and it hurt the power of the engines. However,,,,,,,,I do not remember nitrous use in drag racing engines until sometime in the early eighties. Am I correct so far? Why do you think it took 15 - 20 years to become popular in drag racing engines?

Charlie Evans

Charlie

You're right Charlie ... I was a hydroplane junkie way back then, mostly following the Unlimiteds.

The German's were the first to use Nitrous in an internal combustion engine in aircraft: (they also tried pure oxygen but, that was to much of an onboard bomb). Their reasoning was that as an airplane gained altitude, the density of the air, and thus the amount of oxygen in it, became less and the Nitrous would supplement the thin air and it would act like the plane was at sea level. If used at sea level, sometimes the result was molten pistons and combustion chambers in the exhaust.

The early Gale boats, the Maverick, the Miss U.S.'s, Miss Thriftway and Miss Bardahl, even the Canadian Miss Supertest's and a lot of others tried using the stuff way back in the early 1960's with only limited success. With only "choke" fuel enrichment, a lot of engines met their demise by running way to lean. From there it was discovered that when also including separate fuel enrichment a LOT of power could be produced for more than just a few seconds. Getting the enrichment calibrated correctly became the experiment of Unlimited Hydroplane racing from the 70's all through the 80's until the turbine engines came to the forefront replacing the W.W. II fighter plane engines as the preferred powerplant.

Why it took so long to get to other forms of racing especially drag racing is a mystery to me which I certainly can't answer however, I believe it had something to do with the Unlimited Hydroplanes using the Allison and Rolls Royce airplane engines and the guys who tuned them looked at what worked back in aviation during wartime and somewhat just figured it out; (and didn't make a big deal out of it).

I always enjoy the history lessons, thanks Uncle Charlie, and Randy.

C.Evans of Owensboro wrote: You're an old dog like me.

Randy of Roseville should have replied : You're right Charlie .
LivermoreDave writes: Charlie, that's just a small portion of your identity!

Randy of Roseville wrote:The German's were the first to use Nitrous in an internal combustion engine in aircraft:

LivermoreDave adds: according to information I've read, the French tried the juice after the Germans and the U.S. Air Force only tried the juice as an experimental effort.

Just my opinion of course, I imagine the nitrous followed the aircraft design engine that was popular in the unlimited hydroplanes.

Dave,

Well I remember as a teenager in the 60's standing on the banks of the Ohio and watching the drivers give the engine a "hit" on the straightaways and always seeing a puff of black/gray smoke come out of the exhaust the moment they did. I asked my good friend Terry Sterrett about it and he told me it was nitrous and that it gave the engines more power. He also said you didn't stay on it too long, or it would burn the engines up. It reminds me of todays "push to pass" button on the IRL cars. I know they did not use nitrous on the Miss Chrysler Crew, which was the twin engine Keith Black blown 426 hemi combo in 1965/66, but they did use nitrous on the aircraft engines such as the Merlins. I did not know they used "choke" enrichment, that's a new one to me.

Charlie

P.S. Bradshaw, when we take Louis (he's having surgery) out to eat supper this week, remind me to whip your azz

I remember as a kid, that the first NHRA Rulebook I ever read was in 1963. I've read every one since then and in the history of drag racing, those that won back in the 60's were;
1. Very good drivers.
2. Very good engine builders that could make more horsepower than the next guy.
3. Very good chassis builders that knew about suspensions, shocks, convertors and etc.
4. Cheaters that didn't get caught.

The point being that your car ran in a specific class and it made a big difference as to whether or not your car was a 325 hp 396 or a 350 hp 396. Every car went through a tech inspection that included thengine, and also how many cubic inches you were claiming in classes such the gassers and modified production cars. Nitrous would have been illegal.

It was not until sometime in the 70's that Bracket Racing caught on, dial your own handicap and etc. At that point, with a bracket racing car, it became a mute point as to whether or not you had a 429, or 460, or 514. So I'm thinking after the advent of bracket racing, then in the 80's along came nitrous as a power adder.

Charlie

c.evans wrote:Well I remember as a teenager in the 60's standing on the banks of the Ohio and watching the drivers give the engine a "hit" on the straightaways and always seeing a puff of black/gray smoke come out of the exhaust the moment they did. I asked my good friend Terry Sterrett about it and he told me it was nitrous and that it gave the engines more power. He also said you didn't stay on it too long, or it would burn the engines up. It reminds me of todays "push to pass" button on the IRL cars. I know they did not use nitrous on the Miss Chrysler Crew, which was the twin engine Keith Black blown 426 hemi combo in 1965/66, but they did use nitrous on the aircraft engines such as the Merlins. I did not know they used "choke" enrichment, that's a new one to me.

Charlie

P.S. Bradshaw, when we take Louis (he's having surgery) out to eat supper this week, remind me to whip your azz

The "choke" on a aircraft carburetor, (at least those from Holley), didn't have any restrictive choke blades but, used an "enrichment valve" very similar idea to the later Japanese Mikuni motorcycle or snowmobile carbs.

I do know of an NHRA stocker in the early 70's which put liquid oxygen into his power brake booster in high gear. I did the cylinder heads and they would come back after every race with "potato chipped" valves and he finally told me what was going on.

GREAT HISTORY LESSON GUYS !!!!

I remember my brother-in-law (Vernon Summer) running nitrous back in the mid-eighties also. I believe the system was a Lazer Nitrous system and the solenoids were tiny, looked like my purge system solenoids. The “Silver Bullet” was one of the first ones in this area to run the stuff and of course we tore up tons of parts (mainly trans). We ran in Darlington one year (Super Rod -I think) but it was the class that turned into TS. We passed tech (with the nitrous stickers on the car) and qualified in the top ten but first round someone turned us in and we were kicked out...heck we didn’t know you could not run nitrous. We even passed tech with the bottle in the car. They kicked us out of IHRA but reinstated us the next week! Good ole days!