Direct Hit of Nitrous

Adding nitrous is the easiest way to get ahead of the competition in your Mustang. After all, the stuff is cheap and most systems are fairly simple to install. But making the decision of adding the juice leads to a whole slew of options. The biggest choice is the type of delivery system. There are a variety of ways to get nitrous oxide into your engine--from plate systems to single nozzles in the throttle body to direct port injection and even hidden systems. We won't even start talking about wet and dry setups either. The fact is, there are countless types of nitrous systems on the market to suit everyone's requirements.

This month we are going to tackle the installation of a direct-port nozzle nitrous system. In some respects, it is considered the most complicated to install, but the benefits far outweigh the complexity. Essentially this nitrous system has a nozzle in each runner of the intake manifold. The nozzle sprays a nitrous/fuel mixture into each intake port. As in all juice systems, jets are used to tailor the amount of fuel and nitrous going into the engine.

A lot of people shy away from direct-port injection due to the required "plumbing" to install it on their intake manifold. We hooked up with Steve Johnson, director of motorsports at Edelbrock, to plumb our intake. As Edelbrock's in-house nitrous guru, he deals with the top nitrous teams around the country. This former Pro Mod competitor can be found at almost every big Mustang and Street Legal race as an on-site Edelbrock tech rep. He offered to lend us a hand installing an Edelbrock Super Victor direct-port nitrous kit.

Solenoids are the on and off valves in a nitrous system. On the left is the nitrous solenoid and on the right is the one for fuel. To avoid disaster, it is recommended that a wide-open throttle switch be used to activate the solenoids.

Johnson suggested blowing out and inspecting all the lines and nozzles to clear any packing material or leftover shavings from the manufacturing process.

Victor Jr. and Super Victor intake manifolds come with bungs on the runner that are designed for direct-port nitrous systems. We machined off the top of the bung and drilled and tapped each hole.