Nitrous Oxide 40 seconds power boost

Finances don't quite stretch to a forced induction system? There's always the budget alternative - the legendary power-booster that is nitrous oxide. "Nitrous is great until the bottle is empty," says a nitrous oxide expert. 'A 2lb bottle, set up deliver a 50 horsepower hit, will last about 40 seconds.'

So how does the infamous blue canister work? It's not the nitrous oxide itself that creates extra power, it simply acts as a kind of liquid oxygen, liquid air. You still need to add extra fuel to get a power boost. On a fuel injection bike, when you press the nitrous button an electronic box fools the sensors that tell the injectors how much fuel to add. This tells them to add more, so the extra fuel then burns with the extra oxygen from the nitrous oxide.

On a road bike, we'd recommend no more than a 30 horsepower hit on a 600 to 750cc machine. On a 1000cc or bigger 50 horsepower increase.

You could progressively dial it in, but to be honest at that level you don't want to mess about easing it, you just want it to single-hit and hold on as tight as you can.

For a standard system like that, typically say for a Suzuki Hayabusa, the BTC Moto dry-manufold nitrous kit costs about US$ 900 plus about 10,000 Baht to fit it in. Nitrous oxide itself cost not that much, you can fill a bottle for about 300 Baht. It is probably best to import the nitrous oxide kit yourself, we found some motorcycle mechanics selling them at high prices.

You can even use nitrous oxide and a turbo charger together. We seen a Suzuki GSX1400 which had both, and it's owner claimed that it made 412 horsepower on the rear wheel. The Suzuki GSX1400 produces roughly four times the standard power. But the Suzuki GSX1400 was a pretty serious application - it had installed a Motec engine management system, and that alone is in the higher end of 300,000 Baht.

Nitrous Oxide attracts two types of customers, those who use it as a weapon, and those who use it as a badge. There's a lot of status that comes from having a nitrous bottle hanging off the side of the bike. The more serious boys hide it, under the seat, then go headhunting on legal or illegal races.