Normally you would never hear the words nitrous and drift car in the same sentence, however in the July 2006 issue of Import Tuner magazine, they covered the installation of an Edelbrock Nitrous System on one of drifting’s most popular vehicles. In the drift scene, the Nissan 240sx, otherwise known as the infamous Nissan Silvia in Japan, is the most common chassis to choose from. With its 2.0 liter turbo charged engine, lightweight chassis, and RWD platform, this car is the ideal machine for drifting. The majority of the drifters utilize larger than stock turbos and of course with any turbo upgrade the increased lag comes into play. The concept of drifting mainly revolves around your style, skill, and technique. When being judged on those categories, having a car with excessive lag can hinder your overall performance.

You may ask yourself, “Why use nitrous on a turbocharged drift machine?” To answer that question, Edelbrock teamed up with editor Scott Tsuneishi (Import Tuner) and tested our theory on Richard Tang’s 91 Nissan 240sx fitted with a 2.0 liter SR20DET and just as we expected the results were mind boggling. With the Edelbrock Performer X EFI nitrous kit # 71001 and a few supporting accessories such as the RPM Activation Switch #71905, your laggy turbo setup can now turn into a fire breathing dragon.

Before the nitrous installation, Richard’s 240sx was fitted with a number of after market performance parts including an HKS GT-RS turbine pushing over 300 horse power. The HKS turbine makes full boost at 4500 rpm’s and with the factory rev limiter on the ecu set to 7500 rpm, Richard was having a tough time keeping the car in the 3000 rpm window. If you look at the dyno chart below, you’ll notice how laggy the turbo is by looking at the rpm range in which the car makes full boost. (Curve is shifted over to the right)

After the Install of the basic Edelbrock nitrous kit, we ran different tests utilizing 30, 40, and 50 hp jet settings to see how the car responded. Aside from the basic nitrous kit and the different jettings, Richard also opted for the RPM Activation Switch #71905, a Purge Valve Kit #72176, Blow-Off Adapter #72961, and a Blow-Down Tube #72960. The initial test started off with the 30 hp jet setting and the results were promising. The dyno numbers show that the nitrous began to make its presence felt at the 3150 RPM range. By 3500 RPM, the car made an impressive 23.4 wheel horsepower and 32.8 lb-ft of torque over our baseline numbers. At 4000 rpm the dyno numbers showed a gain of 42.4 wheel horsepower and 56.7 lb-ft of torque. Looking at the graph below you will see that the graph is shifted over to the left, meaning the power comes on sooner with less lag. By the time the engine reached 4500 rpm’s the car showed an increase of 31.6 wheel horse and 33.5 lb-ft of torque was gained. Shortly after, the nitrous will taper off at 5600 rpm leaving it up to the HKS turbo to take over. This nitrous kit multiplied the horsepower gains and also worked as a liquid chiller, injecting (-) 127 degrees F liquid into the motor to keep the SR20DET air intake temps significantly lower. The car also made a slight increase in horsepower after the RPM switch was deactivated due to the denser intake charge from running the nitrous.

After tests were completed on the 30 hp jet setting, we swapped it out for a 40 hp jet to run a new test. Promptly after the first run, there was a more noticeable improvement in the dyno curve at 3150 rpm’s. At 3700 rpm’s the dyno graph greatly shifted over to the left. The 40 hp jet numbers came in at 172.6 wheel horsepower and 243.4 lb-ft of torque, making the baseline numbers of 130.9 wheel horse and 185.5 ft-lb’s of torque a joke. That's a respective gain of 41.7 whp and 57.9 ft-lb of torque. At 4500 rpm’s there was a difference of 32.5 wheel horse and 34.2 ft-lb of torque. This curve continues to climb until 5300 rpm’s where the turbine takes control.

When we ran tests on the 240sx using the 50 hp jet setting we noticed the SR20DET was already producing 302.9 lb-ft of torque at 3996 rpm. Comparing that to the baseline numbers, the car made an increase of 79.7 lb-ft of torque. Entering the realm of 300+ lb-ft or torque was not achieved on the baseline run until 5013 rpm range, a laggy 1017 rpm’s later. At 4500 rpm the car produced 284.1 wheel horse and 329.3 lb-ft of torque. This was an increase of 38.3 wheel horse and 41.8 ft-lb of torque over baseline.

After testing these 3 jets, we have come to the conclusion that using a larger size jet is unnecessary. The 30 hp jet performed amazingly and the possibility of running an even smaller 20 hp jet may have shown a more linear horsepower and torque curve. Upon the vehicles completion, Richard took the car out to a drift day event and ended up spinning the car out on numerous runs managing to wear out an exorbitant amount of tires. Richard stated, “Its like driving a new car with a super responsive turbo. It’s going to take some time to get used to my car again but the nitrous made a day and night difference on my car. I love it.” smiled Tang. “I loooove nitrous!”

If you want to check out the full article, pick up the July issue of Import Tuner or visit www.importuner.com.