The nylon tubes are concealed in wire loom and run behind the dashboard and up to the firewall on the driver side. From there we drilled into the cowl area and then popped through the firewall right behind the vacuum tee. The lines entered the vacuum tee and went their separate ways. One nitrous line runs inside an A/C vacuum line that goes to the bottom of the intake. The other went out the vacuum port labeled "B/R" and into a vacuum hose that ran to the fuel-pressure regulator. We used a T-fitting hidden under the manifold to pipe in the regular vacuum line that goes to the fuel-pressure regulator.
Nitrous pressure must be run to the fuel-pressure regulator to add the nitrous. When the juice is flowing, the nitrous puts pressure on the fuel-pressure regulator diaphragm and restricts the fuel return, thus increasing fuel pressure. Running the extra fuel through the fuel injectors is what classifies this as a dry-type system. Only nitrous is sprayed into the intake manifold, and it does not mix with the fuel until they meet at the bottom of the intake ports.
What makes this system hard to detect is that it uses existing lines so nothing is out of the ordinary. The only addition is one extra vacuum line and T-fitting to properly route the nitrous to the fuel-pressure regulator. But it was done with the utmost care and looks ordinary enough that no one should notice-especially Brand X racers who are not familiar with Mustang engine compartments. Let's be realistic, there are a lot of hoses and wires running around in these engine compartments. It's easy to lose track of what goes where.
This install is certainly harder to perform than others and there are some sacrifices that had to be made. For instance, the passenger-side window could not be lowered when the bottle was in place. To fit the bottle in the door, we had to hack up the doorframe a bit. Just be careful when using a Sawzall as there are some sharp edges remaining. Since the rear-defroster switch was used as our arming button, the rear defrost was disconnected-just one of life's little sacrifices. Otherwise the install was fairly simple.
Throughout the install we bench raced about various combinations that would be unbelievable sleepers. "I would build a 347ci engine and use the stock heads-ported, of course-and intake manifold," Burcham says. "Of course, the intake would be Extrude Honed and the ports enlarged until the intake was paper-thin. The camshaft would be mild, maybe even stock. I would have a few nitrous systems on the car; one shown and two hidden ones. That way you disconnect the one but still have a few good shots of nitrous hidden. The car would be perfect for the TV show Pinks." Your author has visions of a 375ci engine (based on an 8.2-deck block from World Products) with a mild-sounding camshaft and a pair of aluminum heads. Of course, two hidden shots of nitrous would work wonders. Running nines in a lightweight notch wouldn't be a problem with this combo.
Back to reality-the results from our test subject were predicable, to say the least. In stock trim, the AOD-equipped Stang spun a Mustang dyno to the tune of 194 hp and 259 lb-ft of torque. With a 0.047-inch jet in place (80 hp, according to the NOS instructions), the power shot up to 260 hp and 352 lb-ft of torque-at the rear tires, of course. That was a 66 peak-horsepower increase. Timing was set at 10 degrees. What was even cooler was no one in the dyno cell, except for Burcham and us, knew this LX was running on the sauce.
We mounted the NOS solenoids...
We mounted the NOS solenoids to the door using the supplied bracket from NOS. The aluminum block in the middle of the solenoids sends nitrous to the back of the fuel-pressure regulator to help spike fuel pressure. The second solenoid is normally attached to a Hobbs safety switch that shuts down the system if the fuel pressure doesn't spike. We didn't run the safety switch for fear of exposing the nitrous system.
Burcham's solution to going...
Burcham's solution to going from braided line to the nylon tubing was to use a NOS flare jet fitting (PN 17952NOS). It is used on NOS nitrous plates to connect the plate to the nitrous/fuel lines. We used it to house the nitrous jet (0.047 inch) and then connected it to a brass fitting that converts to the nylon tubing. We sourced the brass fitting from an Auto Meter boost gauge. The white line on the right of the photo is the nylon tube we used to carry the nitrous. Everything fit perfectly. We used this setup on both the nitrous solenoid and aluminum block.
The nylon tubes were hidden...
The nylon tubes were hidden in wire loom that we snaked through the duct that leads from the door to the body of the Mustang.