Heating your bottles ?

how are you guys heating your bottles at the track ? bottle wrmers, hot bath's ...how are the pro's doing it ?

Home-built, thermostat controlled water bath.
Once the bottles are up to temp/pressure, they seem to stay that way far longer than when heated with an electric blanket.
I suspect due to the whole bottle being heat soaked.

Brain.

I've been crew chiefing a 5.30 Index car this past season. We have a bottle warmer that stays in the car. It's wired to a pressure switch so it will not overheat the bottle. It runs off 110V in the pits or we also have a deal in the car to plug it in to 12V if we get caught in staging for down time. This saved our butt at the last race in November during an oil down. We are a couple of nitrous rookies, but this set-up has worked great and have had zero issues with our bottle pressure. We did finish 3rd in points with 2 wins and a R/U in 9 races. Would have been better if I could get my driver to shape up (LOL) but thats a whole 'nother story. LOL

"hot bath's"
Sounds strange
In the cooler with the beer i.m.o.

funny Lem



Does anyone have any pics of a homemade bath or even a parts list ?

I use a plastic tank that I modified to fit 2 bottles, and use an aquarium heater to keep it at a set temperature, and always have 2 bottles ready. I plug it in when i get to the track and its pretty effective. I also have a pressure regulated bottle heater in the car so pressure stays consistant.Ill try to get some pics up.

Propane Torch.


I know it's not technically / politically correct, but as long as you move the flame around and don't hold it in one spot, you'll be fine.

Copperhead wrote:Propane Torch.


I know it's not technically / politically correct, but as long as you move the flame around and don't hold it in one spot, you'll be fine.

I used to cringe when I saw someone doing that on the old PINKS show. I can imagine that it could have catastrophic results if the bottle either leaked or the bottle became weakened from repeated heatings.
J.M.O.
Gary

I bet there is not many of us nitrous guys that have not done this at one time or another.

valleydawg wrote:I bet there is not many of us nitrous guys that have not done this at one time or another.

Ive never done it. When I was young I saw one go off in the staging lanes and nearly kill a racer, also destroyed the rear of his car andid damage to the car to his right and directly behind him, but you are right there probly arent very many that havent.

bruno wrote:funny Lem



Does anyone have any pics of a homemade bath or even a parts list ?

~50qt cooler with 2 holes cut in the top a little bigger than the nitrous bottles. I like to give a little more space in the middle for the heating element. Cut a hole in the side to fit a small electric hot water heater element and thermostat on the side about 1/3 the way up from the bottom. Use a good amount of sealer to prevent leaks. When I first build one of these, I like to put the bottles in and fill it with water and then take the bottles out. Mark the top of the water level then, this gives you an idea of how much water to add when you get to the track. I like the adjustable thermostat and the reliability of this setup. I use used coolers from garage sales or thrift stores. The only new parts is the hot water heater element and thermostat. This is a very cheap and reliable setup that is easy to build, use, and maintain. I don't have any pics here at work but I will try to post some later.

Barney wrote:

valleydawg wrote:I bet there is not many of us nitrous guys that have not done this at one time or another.

Ive never done it. When I was young I saw one go off in the staging lanes and nearly kill a racer, also destroyed the rear of his car andid damage to the car to his right and directly behind him, but you are right there probly arent very many that havent.

This is the reason to NOT buy a used, painted, nitrous bottles. I have seen some pretty cool, yet dangerous, bottle explosions because of this.

Maybe I should have said "Old Nitrous Guys". 20-25 yrs ago when we were just starting with nitrous this was the norm.

valleydawg wrote:Maybe I should have said "Old Nitrous Guys". 20-25 yrs ago when we were just starting with nitrous this was the norm.

Funniest thing I've seen with nitrous was a guy who bracket raced with it in a Top Sportsman type car in the 90's. He usually ran mid 7's on an terrible track. At about the 1000ft mark his car nosed over but he drove it out and go almost all the way back to the pits when he flopped out of the car like a fish with it still rolling. The crazy SOB was higher that Cheech and Chong on the nitrous. He had a line break and filled the car with the stuff and apparently he was using medical grade stuff because he said he never spelled the sulfur. Nothing bad happened to the car and he was okay but we sure did get a laugh out of it. The same guy had a patched hole in the top of his trailer because he had a bottle burst in the sun and the valve went straight out the top of the trailer. If it wasn't for bad luck some of us wouldn't have luck at all.

I've never used a torch either i've always had a bottle heater in the car but it will kill a battery quick. A heat gun works good vs the torch and safer but you need a generator the other thing i've tried was the 110volt 500w bottle heater for the mother bottle but then again you need the generator deal. Wait i got it a giant magnifying glass why didnt i think of this years ago i could already be retired instead of retarted i mean retired

It got really cold the night before a race and the generator was in another truck and had to race shortly so I stuck the bottle on the passenger side floor of my truck with the heater on, it worked great then someone came over and showed me pictures of his truck when the pressure relief valve blew and it had blown all his windows out. still safer than a torch though

Copperhead wrote:Propane Torch.


I know it's not technically / politically correct, but as long as you move the flame around and don't hold it in one spot, you'll be fine.

Im suprised with the way your truck is detailed lol. I figured your bottle was painted to match the truck.

Anyway I use a torch all the time even though I have a normal bottle heater. You pretty much have to when its cold or on the street. Btw my truck is street driven to the track so I have no fancy trailer hook ups or warm baths. Its whatever fits in the truck

I personally never saw a bottle explode. Im not saying it cant happen I just never seen it with my own eyes. And alot of people use them at my local track.

why does everyone cring when heated with a torch if you keep an eye on the pressure and it does not exceed the limit it will be ok thats the only thing to worry about it is an oxidiser unless you have something to burn, it will just explode or pop the over pressure relief....... but the relief should go way before the bottle........I can say I never did heat mine but I always made sure they were 90+% @ 27* full instead of the 60% @ room temp most fillers do.....



Randy

the Coug wrote:why does everyone cring when heated with a torch if you keep an eye on the pressure and it does not exceed the limit it will be ok thats the only thing to worry about it is an oxidiser unless you have something to burn, it will just explode or pop the over pressure relief....... but the relief should go way before the bottle........I can say I never did heat mine but I always made sure they were 90+% @ 27* full instead of the 60% @ room temp most fillers do.....



Randy

Concentrated heat in one spot too long on aluminum is a disaster waiting to happen. If the heat is evenly distributed its ok.........I'd still use a water bath, or the truck heater or something other than a torch.

Deal with a used bottle is you don't know if its been heated with a torch by a dumbass.

richter69 wrote:I'd still use a water bath, or the truck heater or something other than a torch.

With my Cleveland stuff there was never enough nitrous used to really worry about heating the bottle. But as fat as NOS's factory jetting was some extra bottle pressure might have been usefull. One down side of heating the bottle is if your solenoids wont open (or open consistently) at higher bottle pressures. I have tried the truck floor heater deal on one guy's car cuz that's how he has always done it for years, and it works great as long as you don't get stuck waiting in the staging lanes long cuz of an oil down or crash.

I have been thinking that someone (if they have crew members at the track) could easily keep an extra 12V battery with long cables & quick disconnects sitting somewhere on a pit/tow vehicle to power the bottle heater in the car while in the lanes so the heater doesn't drain the race car battery.

I think several of the sanctioning bodies have outlawed use of propane torches on bottles.

After all the talk I decided to change my old ways when in a jam. Starting this year I will have a bottle blanket on and I have a battery mounted on the four wheeler. What do you think? [/img]

I've been using Nitrous since the early 80's and we started using torches or putting the bottle in front of the exhaust on the generator, that's just what you did back in the day . We now use the hot water bath, it also helps maintain a more consistant bottle pressure because the entire bottle and it's contents are at the same temp instead of random areas of the bottle. We spray 3 sytstems on the 698 and 2 BIG ones on the 427 smallblock and the pressure is much more stable (as shown on the Data logger) and the tune much more consistant with the hot water bath.

I also use a hot water bath heating my bottles in the trailer but sometimes when you wait for ever in line you need a quick fix or a quick hit. Now I will use the blanket and not a small torch.

I know guys (and gal) that run in the ADRL that use a small catalyst style camping heater like you have in a golf cart or something. There is now open flame but you can heat the bottles quickly.

throw them in the camp fire for a few minutes!