"There's no drama with this Nitrous Pro-Flow stuff," observed Westech's Steve Brule as we neared the end of our test day. "You just put it on there and it works." But with all due respect, we'd have to say Brule was only mostly right. Our experiment, in which we bolted a Nitrous Pro-Flow Single Stage nitrous system onto a 406ci small-block and flogged it on the dyno, went about as smoothly as we could imaginea dyno test going. But no drama? To our way of thinking, things got plenty exciting when our 406 test subject-which we'd baselined at 594 hp-responded to a 175-horse nitrous shot by cranking out a mind-boggling 840 hp. And some minor histrionics ensued as we debated whether or not to run a 225-horse shot of juice as originally planned. But as for how the Nitrous Pro-Flow setup worked, yeah, that was drama-free-we bolted it on, hooked it up, and made power. Maybe even too much power, if there's any such thing.
Our modus operandi would be to start off with a rather stout Coast High Performance-built 406ci stroker small-block, the very powerplant we created to run against a 402ci LS2 in Jan. '07's "Old School Meets New" contest; it was then outfitted with beehive valvesprings in "Rev Happy" (Mar. '07). After laying down a fresh set of baseline numbers, we'd install the aforementioned Nitrous Pro-Flow Single Stage system with burst panels, a setup capable of spraying shots from 50 to 250 hp. We ordered an assembled system, which made installation a snap. "We wanted to design a system where all users have to do was lift the carb and bolt it on," says Justin Elkes, Nitrous Project Manager at Wilson Manifolds/Nitrous Pro-Flow. And except for wiring the system and hooking up the fuel and nitrous lines, that's exactly how it went.
Important as ease of installation is, however, we were more interested in learning why this setup works so well. "One of the big things," according to Elkes, "is the 360-degree spray pattern. We get the spray as close as possible to each cylinder, making sure the distribution is as good as it can get." The bottom line is that if one cylinder is making less power, the engine is fighting that cylinder each time it fires on the power stroke, keeping it from reaching its full power potential. Nitrous Pro-Flow has gone to impressive lengths to create a plate that delivers optimal distribution characteristics, but as we've pointed out elsewhere, this attention to detail is evident throughout the system. "There's pretty much no part of this that hasn't been thought about," Elkes tells us. A look at the components involved leaves no doubt of this, but the performance we achieved really proves the point.