SimonR

Um...the kit has arrived and the bottle doesn't have any EU markings. I assume from your comment that suppliers can be precious about this. Still, there are no such things as problems - only opportunities. This must be a common opportunity and I'm guessing that the easiest fix would be to do my own label with a EU mark. A quick rummage on the interweb hasn't revealed anything readily available. Is it just a case of sticking on a separate EU sticker or am I likely to have to forge a complete label from a compliant bottle? Who has done this and do you have a scan or at least a close-up pic that I can create my own label from?

I paid £308 for a dry kit from Cold Fusion. That's including bottle, purge kit and p+p from Texas. I wouldn't pay that much for a wife let alone a nitrous kit. Dunno, this will be my first nitrous kit so I won't know until I've got some experience.

Nice, but a bit pricey for me.

Sweet! You're pretty handy at this interweb. Thanks.

See this. "There are 3 electrical connections to the device. One is common. One is N/O (normally open). The other is N/C (normally closed)." This one has pressure passing through but that's not necessary. I would probably set switch up with the N/C to the WOT switch, the common to the solenoid. The nitrous comes on when the WOT switch detects Wide Open Throttle and goes off when the boost hits the pre-defined level (the relay switches to N/O).

Yes, a relay which has common/NC/NO connections such as you'd find on a thermostat.

That's the arming switch, not the boost switch.

Ho ho. Most amusing. We're not getting any closer to which switch people are using, though.

That's what I've bought. I assume that you aren't switching the nos off when you get boost?

I was going to start with a 25 and work my way up. I'm feeling brave. I was endlessly warned that I would blow up my engine by mapping it myself but that advice turned out to be unfounded so I'll have a go at the nitrous as well.

I did look at controlling it via the Emanage (using the 5v output meant for an additional injector) but I'd still need some kind of pricey control module to take that 5v signal and control the solonoid with it.

Um, I wasn't thinking of anything as complicated (or expensive) as a progressive controller. I'm thinking a straightforward small shot at WOT from the start line until I reach x PSI then switch off the gas and boost only for the rest of the run.

I asked my local motorfactor ("anything you can buy on-line we can get for you") for a boost switch or hobbs switch and got a very blank look indeed. I feel a case of 'keep buying stuff off Ebay until you get lucky' coming on. Most grateful if anyone who has done it could save me time and cash by pointing me to a suitable adjustable switch to turn off the nitrous when the boost comes on. Ta.

I bought a Cold Fusion kit without a bottle in the hope of saving a few quid. I'm very mean.

Dang! Just paid £80 for a bottle and thought that was a good deal.

I take your point. Just wondering if I can 'cheap out' here. It would be in keeping with all my other mods!

I had to sit down and catch my breath when I saw the price of nitrous bottles. Over £100 for a bit of rolled-up metal? Ouch. Has anyone found any creative solutions to this problem? You don't have to be cheap like me, just showing your ingenuity. I'm wondering if any other pressurised containers will fit the bill? Fire extinguishers spring to mind. Am I destined to spend ages bemoaning the cost and then having to bite the bullet anyway or does anyone have a cunning plan?

Contracting can be a question of who you know not what you know. I know really good guys who can't get any work and I know eejits who have been on the same contract for years. If she decides to leave she probably won't get the bonus, not if her manager is anything like me!

What gain settings are you using? I assume that there's some commonality in the configuration of this function between EBCs?

I believe that you are referring to the 'gain' function which is available on some EBCs. I have it on the Blitz D-SBC and it is one of the methods that I will be looking at.

The spring rate on my external HKS wastegate appears to be about 1 bar - that's the max boost that I'm getting. I've noticed that the wastegate starts to open (audible via the screamer pipe) at about .6 bar and then continues to open progressively (at least that what it sounds like) up to full boost. Reading up on wastegate creep, it appears that this is a known phenomenon and is intentional (at least on manufacturers' production systems) with the purpose of making the onset of boost smoother. That’s all very well, but why would such a function be present on an after-market performance item? I’m wondering whether this is actually a ham-fisted attempt at preventing boost spikes or possibly an intentional starting-point default behaviour which you are then expected to manipulate. I’m now looking at ways of eliminating – or at least minimising – this effect. I’m not expecting the wastegate to go from fully closed to fully open in a millisecond but I’m sure that the current situation can be improved upon.

I can think of better things to do with a couple of grand!

emm.exe logging from Emanage. Export results to CSV then PERL script to convert the recorded voltages to useful values. Sometimes I feel like a proper tit. I can't believe that I posted earlier that presumably the ECU was pulling fuel. The very same logs that I was looking at also contain the stock injector values in ms and %. D'oh! At the same time that the AFR's increase, the stock injection is reduced by quite a margin. There's a surprise! So, in a way my first post was correct - that the internal maps are pulling fuel so I suppose that just leaves me wondering whether I should be concerned about the high AFRs under high boost. I guess not, as that's the deliberate situation from the ECU. I was wondering why the ECU threw so much additional fuel into the mix at about 4,000rpm and above under WOT. Maybe this has something to do with it.

No second butterfly on my car - no TRAC. Thanks for the replies, though.

Reviewing my logs from yesterday at the Pod I noticed something that I must have missed before. On gear changes (auto) the AFRs go way lean – up to 17s – for about .3 of a second. Boost also dips slightly (about 3psi from 1/2 and about 1 psi from 2/3). I’m not letting off the throttle at any point and it’s a mechanical linkage so the throttle position isn’t changing and anyway the TPS output confirms that it’s wide open for the whole run. So it’ll be something buried in those cunning internal maps somewhere, then. I assume that this is intentional and therefore nothing to worry about (?), it’s just that looking at a log that says that 17.7 AFR at 100% TPS and 12psi goes against the grain somehow. I’ve heard anecdotal opinion about gear changes involving timing retard and my logs show an apparent pulling of fuel, but does anyone know exactly what the ECU is getting up to during auto gear changes?