Nitrous Oxide - High CR, 382cid, and 500HP of nitrous ... Need a cam

I am looking at a 382 small bore with 12.5 CR and a 500HP DP nitrous and need a cam that is somewhat streetable with a 6-spd. Also, I would like to hear some sound bites on your cam and engine setup.

pass it over here, your hogging it

pass it over here, your hogging it

I'm on the left side thank you :devil:

Gold Phoenix, not sure I am tracking with you...You want a 382 stroker, one that has the ring lands relatively close to the rod pin, and then you want to nail it with a FIVE HUNDRED shot of N2O? WTF, dont bogart that shishi man, puff puff pass.

For real, I know I am a little crazy, throwing 200shots on a stock engine w/cam only, and want to build a small 347 with a 300shot DP. Maybe its just me, but I am thinking 500shot, DP, even if it Progressively Controlled is going to kill you. You might invest in a C5R block, and I would say stay away from having the ring lands into the Rod pin area, low is good for this setup, but 382 stroker pushes your strength too much.

Call Tony Christian or Bob Reiger, I'm sure they have a few spares sitting around.

500 DP shot? :bomb: your engine is gonna go. What do you expect to run with that thing? My buddy has a Chevy II that runs 8.20s and hes got a two stage 150 and 400 shot on a sbc 383. You plan on running sevens? I think your nuts the most ive heard on a LS1 is 300 DP. But hey its your engine just make sure to invest in a shovel for pick up the parts at the track.

Most ring lands for nitrous are .300" below the top of the piston. That leaves .835" from the top ring to the center of the wrist pin. That is alot of room in my opinion. Besides, what is Agostino Racing throwing at their 427cid motor. To get their kind of trap speeds they need about 1000HP with a 3700lb car. The compression height on their motor is the same as what I am looking at on my 382. As for the block, all they did to a re-sleeve is just that. Bore out the old cylinder and then some, then install a BIGGER sleeve. The block isn't any stronger that before. And of course, I am going to build the motor with all forged internals, ARP studs, and billet main caps. I am sure the motor will handle the power. As far as how fast I want to go, as fast as it will take me.

The most ARE has sprayed, or claimed to have sprayed, was 400. The car weighs in at the bottom end of 3200 or so. 500 HP on any of our motors is going to certainly squirt out the cylinder head. You could run 1/2" head studs, if you could fit them, and still have that problem. Let alone the fact that you are going to spit your six speed right out the ass end of the car. Don't think I don't know that either, I've done it with the same setup your proposing.

Honestly, a little work on your suspension is probably in order. For every dollar spent on the motor you'll need another dollar in the chassis and driveline of the car. So get your checkbook ready. You can certainly go fast, but if you want to do it repeatedly or only once will ultimately dictate how much you spend.

Let me know if you have any questions, I'll gladly tell you what it took.

Well, at that kind of power level a built TH400 will be in order as well as suspension mods. I checked out your website. How much are you spraying with your setup? I assume that your crank is a forged piece. What are your cam specs? What is the idle quality like? Do you have a sound bite of the new motor? What does your engine dyno at? Any other bolt-on?

honestly, if you what to spray a 500 shot, you will need atleast 560-600hp NA in order for it to work. i am not saying it is impossible but it is just pure phisics. this will ofcoarse put you at 1100-1200hp and you will be one of the fastest LS1s in the world. if you are like most of use on the board, after all the bolt ons and a good heads and cam combo you will be around 400-450hp. that with a 300 shot will put you into the 9s easy. once you start spraying over 75% of what you make on motor, you are going to start having problems but will good tunning it can be done. once you start getting to 100% you will just start to lose power the more you spray it. this is due to the fact that you motor will not flow enough air to phisically get more nitrous in it. this is, of coarse, just a rule of thum not a exact fact but is a very dependable theory. i have seen plenty of 500 shot cars before, but most of them are 7 second big block nitrous kings. i wish i can have one of those cars.

ARE ran the c5r heads with a custom intake and a 400 dp shot. That motor made like 589 hp and 660lbft na. Look at the article in this months chevy high performance. This is definately not a street car, so idle quality should not even factor. It just doesn't seem like this would be cost feasible with all the fabrication, suspension, and cage. You would need a total frame off update to make this work. If you need to ask questions like what cam to buy then you are definately not ready for an 8 second car build up. Just my .02 though from experience.

I'm going to move this into the nitrous section, maybe the guys in there can offer some opinions on a good cam for your set up. By the way, you have some pair to spray a 500 shot!!!!!! :cheers:

Well...hopefully in a months time ill be spraying a 400 shot in three stages rpm based.

If you plan to even approach a 500 shot your gonna have to think long and hard about how that shot is delivered to have any chance of making it work.

As far as only being able to spray an equal amount of HP that you are making NA...We tested that to a degree.

If you have EFI live or similiar you can log MAF flow rate on motor. Then spray a wet shot behind the MAF and measure the difference in airflow due to the nitrous and fuel displacing the air that would normally be making its way through the MAF. At some point you will reach 100% nitrous/fuel and no air will be being sucked into the intake.

But from looking at what we recorded so far..it looks like that theoretical limit is HUGE. Like a 400 hp motor should be able to ingest like three times that in nitrous. I think the smaller gains in superhigh shots is probably more a tuning issue.

No, Derty doesn't have a forged crank, yet. He is running the stock crank. You'll be fine with it, unless you have the extra $$ to throw at a forged crank.

The stock one seems to be holding up just fine in mine, so far.

Well, at that kind of power level a built TH400 will be in order as well as suspension mods. I checked out your website. How much are you spraying with your setup? I assume that your crank is a forged piece. What are your cam specs? What is the idle quality like? Do you have a sound bite of the new motor? What does your engine dyno at? Any other bolt-on?

I'm only spraying 300 and compared to 200 it's a wild fricken ride. It did so much violent shit to the car I don't know where to start. The crank is a stock crank, no one has ever broken one yet so there's really not a huge priority to get one that's forged. I'll say that my cam is reasonable in size for a solid roller, but it's definitely something more streetable then an all out race cam. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 something and over .600 lift on a 112. We could definitely stuff something bigger in there if I wanted to. Idle quality is pretty cool, it brings the neighborhood down and can be heard from 3 miles away. No ricer in town even plays with me anymore. :(

Here's a video of me getting the car off the trailer. Video (http://www.derty.org/movies/dragracing/midmich/license_passes/M8_382_Trailer.wmv). On motor the car only made 410 RWHP on a Mustang dyno through the turbo 400. :devil: But if you do the math with a raceweight of 3500 and 9.51 @ 145 or even 147 MPH you'll see what it actually takes. I hope you have a very deep wallet. This big of a jump definitely was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. You'd be better off starting with a $2k V6 junker camaro off from e-bay to save yourself some heartaches with a daily driver and lower your cost of the vehicle a bit.

Well, I know there are some turbo/supercharged LS1 motors out there pushing to the 1000HP range (btw I am not saying RWHP.) If you figure a 20% power loss in the drivetrain, I might see 800RWHP. There are turbo cars putting 750RWHP to the ground. I didn't want to goto big stroker due to the medium flow of the heads by comparision. I am not going just jump to the 500HP shot, but I would like to get there. So with that all out, let's get back to my original question. What are some cam suggestions for this kind of setup with Stage 3 LS6 heads, 12.5 CR, 382cid, and heavy nitrous?

230-236 .605 .610 112

Damn, all this nitrous talk is getting me excited.

I wonder what my car is gonna run with a dual stage 300 on it at full weight.

Any guesses??????

I'm dropping it off at Norris Motorsports first week in January to get started on the re-ringing. FINALLY!!!!!!!! :drive:

Derty-NICE!!!! That cam sounds awesome!

Hey, I found a cam that is kinda wild. The guy uses it in his 383 all-bore motor with 12.2 CR. The specs are 242-250-114 with .610"/.612". And it is a hydraulic roller. Yeah the idle will be a little rough, but for a max effort why not.

That would be my choice for a cam but, um you better wait a minute and think about what your saying. You SAID 382! That means STROKER. That means street in block with that much compression and THEN YOUR gunna add that much dope! CRAZY-IGNORANT-WILD(all in one word)!!!!!

I personally think it might like 3 passes up hey give it a shot! After the 3rd you'll probably hear some really bad noises and when you go to tear it apart and pull the intake off you'll prolly see the rest of the engine come apart too.

Josh S.

I'd go between the 230/236 and the 242/250, whichever leaves more meat on the piston ratehr than having deeper reliefs. Sounds like you just cam across the wrong way, with the 500shot. Should make somewhere near 450 with motor on that stroker, and then nail a nice two stage or multi stage (like 383LQ4SS) and make that 800 mark easy enough.
I am going to track your build up if you dont mind, I was wanting the same more or less for my car after my upcoming deployment. Thought, stroker=Tq and Hp, then add a dry 100 for launch and timing tuning. then a 250-300NXL DP for the finsihing touch having it progressively controlled to keep the TQ spike down and flatten out the power.

Getting the motor to keep the heads on the block isnt hard. Just have the engine builder o-ring the block and install copper head gaskets. If you need someone to talk to about that call the guys at MMT in Dallas, TX.

469-721-3080 and talk to Sean. They are not having issues with lifting the heads anymore.

I appriecate the responses I am getting from people that are not just saying that I am crazy. I honestly believe that the block and heads will handle the amount of power I am going to cram into it with PROPER preparation. I know there are people that say it can be done and reliable. Of course, I am not going to use an off-the-shelf street piston. It is going to be a piston for nitrous applications. I am also looking at Total Seals MAX seal piston rings which has a gapless top ring. I know I have heard others having problems with the gapless ring, but with two rings on the top land I can have a wide endgap and still have a good seal even after some wear. As for it going to be a stroker, it cost the same to buy a stock stroke forged crank or a 4.25" crank. I wanted to keep it reasonable. And yes, I do intend to have a progressive controller on the nitrous system so it keeps the torque spike to a controllable launch. I am not just going to throw this all together without making sure it will be reliable. Besides, a turbo motor can produce the same power and torque as what I am building except for the difference in cost to build I can refill my 10lb bottle 115 times. If I get two passes out of each bottle, that is 230 hard passes. I haven't made that many passes since I bought this car. And AGAIN I am not going to the 500HP right away. I plan on starting at NA, then 100HP and stepping up from there to the 500HP. And with each step, watching the car and making adjustments. When I get to the big 500 a few times, I will pull the motor and inspect for any indications of trouble. What I need is some builder who have used this much nitrous answer this thread and tell what of damage happened with the cause of it. This is a planning under development.

That would be my choice for a cam but, um you better wait a minute and think about what your saying. You SAID 382! That means STROKER. That means street in block with that much compression and THEN YOUR gunna add that much dope! CRAZY-IGNORANT-WILD(all in one word)!!!!!

I personally think it might like 3 passes up hey give it a shot! After the 3rd you'll probably hear some really bad noises and when you go to tear it apart and pull the intake off you'll prolly see the rest of the engine come apart too.

Josh S.

I did say a BIG stroker like from the 395 small-bore to the 436cid

Again, I wish you luck, and will follow your progress.
I say your close to being able to do it. Dont know anyone running that big a shot, on an LS1 so cant say it is or isnt possible. Hope it is.

Just a thought about heads. I researched some other manufacture's cylinder heads and found something interesting. Patroit Performance's Stage 3 LS6 heads have a slightly larger intake/exhaust ports and easily outflows Edelbrock's Victor Jr. heads. The LS6 even has smaller valves. Now I know there are some SBC guy out there building heavy nitrous motor with these heads. Even the biggest port heads I found fairly priced are only 230cc. So the thing about the engine being able to consume all the spray, I don't think it will be a problem. Just something interesting I saw.

If anything, be aware that almost all of our failures with heads have been in the deck area along the bores. With 4 bolts per cylinder the deck likes to lift in that general area. Even if you ring the block, like mine, you may still face some serious issues with cylinder pressure. Even though they are not out yet, the AFR's with the thicker deck height may actually help this problem out.

And as far as cost goes, in one year alone I've spent enough money on nitrous shit to actually entertain the thought that a turbo setup would be cheaper. Yes it's cheap to fill bottles, but then you have fresh sets of plugs all the time, race fuel, etc. Granted race fuel doesn't go away but this stuff adds up quicker then you think.

Derty, but your also near the top of THE list, and street driven too!

GP, I thought the same for the AFR heads, as soon as they said thick deck, I was all smiles. As long as they flow, they will be a future purchase ;)

Yup, I even drove the car today. It was nice, 35 degrees out, I could see my breath while I was driving. Snow on the grass, pretty dry roads though. It was great! But, the point is I have some big nuts but I can't see spraying 500 on my car the way it sits. No way. And it's not because my nuts are swollen or anything that effects my better judgment. I know what 300 did to my car, I can't imagine what 500 would do.

Hmm, on another thought if I sprayed 500 maybe I could get an 8 out of the damn thing. I'll have to wait a few months though, it's cold and wet here now. Snow is on the way for a very white Christmas indeed!

Speaking of tuning, how much timing wuold be good to start off with on a 180-220DP shot from my NXL? I feel the tuned for nitrous, NA falls on face.

500shot pulls keep dancing in my head!

I might seriously look at the AFR heads. I like the Street version's specs, but does anyone have the flow numbers for the Strip unit? Also, I would like to know the exhaust port volume. I do think this will hold up better then the production LS6 heads

Speaking of tuning, how much timing wuold be good to start off with on a 180-220DP shot from my NXL? I feel the tuned for nitrous, NA falls on face.

500shot pulls keep dancing in my head!


Where is your timing at now NA and are you running race gas or not. If so, what octane are you using and is that what your current tune is set for. NX recommends -1 degree for each 50 HP applied. I found that I needed to take out a bit more where my converter flashes and a little more in the higher RPM band. Keep in mind that may be unique to my setup too. You may want to consider -2 degrees above 6000. Try to get your A/F down to 11:1 with no pinging.

The base NX recommended tune was pretty close. I just paid closer attention to the pinging and leveling out the A/F safely. Haven't had any issues with it. The car runs clean and the plugs look great. Just load up a new plug on your last run and check the timing mark. Use that for some final judgement on the timing.

Well...hopefully in a months time ill be spraying a 400 shot in three stages rpm based.

If you plan to even approach a 500 shot your gonna have to think long and hard about how that shot is delivered to have any chance of making it work.

As far as only being able to spray an equal amount of HP that you are making NA...We tested that to a degree.

If you have EFI live or similiar you can log MAF flow rate on motor. Then spray a wet shot behind the MAF and measure the difference in airflow due to the nitrous and fuel displacing the air that would normally be making its way through the MAF. At some point you will reach 100% nitrous/fuel and no air will be being sucked into the intake.

But from looking at what we recorded so far..it looks like that theoretical limit is HUGE. Like a 400 hp motor should be able to ingest like three times that in nitrous. I think the smaller gains in superhigh shots is probably more a tuning issue.

383LQ4, so what you are saying is that it might me possibale for a 400HP engine to spray a 1200 shot of spray? i understand that when you are spraying that the N20 releases its own oxygen so the natural air that comes into the engine is the same but no mader what you do, the N20 still has to pass through the port of the head. from what i understood, this is the point that limits more N20 from entering the motor and makeing more power. the 1to1 ratio is just what i heard to be the limit and i dont know of many people that have passed that ratio up so i fugured it was pretty accurate. this is instreasting though as i might be wrong. if i am, then maybe some day someone will be able to figure it out, and then everyone can have a 8 second car and still just have 400 NA. that would be cool.


Derty, i envy you for being able to have a white chirstmass. :hail: it is going to be in the 80s this chirstmass just like it is almost every year. maybe i will be able to have one of those white ones someday.

Holy crap. Now, I'm all about big spray, huge horsepower...but jeez man. Your current best pass of 12.188 does not even remotely prepare you for what your thinking of building, and a 500 shot and streetable cam should never, ever be in the same sentence. Either build a race car or don't, but from what I'm hearing you think that a 500 shot is child's play. Make no mistake, that motor WILL come apart somehow. 1000 horsepower is no joke, and I don't care what you think you know, if you think that 1000 horsepower and 382 cubic inches will last more than one season you're sorely mistaken.

That being said, a 500 shot will need an extremely large cam if you plan on being able to evacuate all of that exhaust volume, somewhere in the 255+ range. LSA should stay around 115-116 for maximum N20 power. Good luck, you're going to need it.

Steve<---------official parts catcher

Why do some of you doubt the strength of the LS1? The stock cast iron crankshafts have handled over 700RWHP and survives. Every component attached to the block helps to increase the strength of the block. And my "streetable" attempt will be on the very edge of it. And some of you are not reading the thread thoughly so I will do this.

[B]I AM NOT GOING TO GO TO A 500HP SHOT OF NITROUS OXIDE ALL AT ONCE. I AM GOING TO DO IT IN STEPS. THE MOTOR AND CAR WILL BE BUILT TO HANDLE THE POWER. ALL I WANTED IS OPINIONS ON CAM SPECS FOR A 12:5 CR, 382CID, AND 500HP OF NITROUS. I WILL WORRY ABOUT KEEPING THE MOTOR TOGETHER AND LEARNING TO KEEP THE CAR ON THE TRACK.

I hate to be rude, but some of you need to read the whole thread.

Do you really think we're telling you this just to piss you off? I am speaking from experience, period. I shot a 400 on my LT1 and let me tell you, it IS NOT reliable, no matter how much you're trying to convince yourself it is. It's not the crank that breaks, it's not the pistons, rods, block etc. It's not one thing that always breaks, it random stuff. If it was always the crank that broke, just get a billet crank and go on spraying away. Here's a run down for you through the various issues I had that required a tear down while spraying a 400 shot.

1.) Spark plug porcelain disintigrates and breaks the plug in half, wedging metal in the quench area and breaking a piston.

2.) Aeromotive Eliminator Pump Fails at 1/2 track, fuel pressure safety switch does not react fast enough, car runs lean, cylinder #1 piston melts 1/3 of the way around the ring land

3.) Cometic head gasket/ARP head studs and a head gasket still pops, hydrolocks motor, bent rods on numbers 3 and 5.

Shall I continue? The only reason I even question the setup at all is your confidence it's going to last. I'm just telling you how it is in the real world. Ask ANYBODY making that type of power if it's going to break, we've been there and done that, learn from our experience.

Oh yeah, good luck with a 6 speed holding that too....

Gold...just build a strong bottom and stud it all around. Then begin with a smaller shot. Like a dual stage 125/125 or progressive 225 shot or something along those lines. Then work your way up. Youll find a a spot where your comfortable Im sure. You may never get to a 500 shot and be happy.
If you were to setup a nice new engine and slam a 500 shot on it fisrt try obviosly it would just be one big grenade. You need to log your progress from a smaller shot so you would know what to expect in the area of tuning requirements

To spray that large of a shot will require ALOT of parts to support that/ From fuel systems, to chassis, to rear, to built tranny, to one hell of a wheel/tire/suspension combo, to safety equpment, etc

But by all means...go for it!

Tag...about how much the motor can ingest....I really believe its way more than 1 to 1. I think people start seeing minimal gains at higher leverls due to tuning, cam selection, exhaust, etc. Because the motor and those parts where built to operate in that "all motor" area of power. You often hear that to use nitrous you should build the motor to max NA power then spray it.
Well I believe if you built the motor (meaning cam selection, exhaust, valve sizes, exhaust ports, intake) to operate with the amount of HP you have in mind while spraying(like say a 600 shot) you would be less likely to hit that wall. Of course at that point your motor would run lke ass NA. But when you hit the juice...lookout!

So that old adage of building a motor for max power NA and then spraying it really only applies if you want a good running NA car and a good running nitrous car. For a max power nitrous motor things will very be different.

Tag...about how much the motor can ingest....I really believe its way more than 1 to 1. I think people start seeing minimal gains at higher leverls due to tuning, cam selection, exhaust, etc. Because the motor and those parts where built to operate in that "all motor" area of power. You often hear that to use nitrous you should build the motor to max NA power then spray it.
Well I believe if you built the motor (meaning cam selection, exhaust, valve sizes, exhaust ports, intake) to operate with the amount of HP you have in mind while spraying(like say a 600 shot) you would be less likely to hit that wall. Of course at that point your motor would run lke ass NA. But when you hit the juice...lookout!

So that old adage of building a motor for max power NA and then spraying it really only applies if you want a good running NA car and a good running nitrous car. For a max power nitrous motor things will very be different.

i see what you are saying but i have not seen to many cars going over the 1to1 mark and not have problems. even motors built just for spray but i am not saying that it is not possible. i was talking to a couple of guys that run in the nitrous madness class in the clash of the titans race here in texas and even they were telling me that they only spray like a 700shot when there motors were making close to 1000 NA. of coarse all these were big blocks with 572+CI and 3 fogger kits plubed into the intakes and 1 plate system under the carb (LOL that stuff is crazy). although considering that they did not know me very well they could be lieing to me and not letting out there true secrets. this is very intereasting though. i would really like to see someone try to get to 2to1. that would be awsome.

Gold Phenix, to answer your true question, i would go with a 270/280 @.050, .700+ lift 114+LSA, with a C5R head a must. enjoy.

Tag...I dont know that for a fact at all...just speculation. But...When I put the third stage on my car..I will be right almost exactly 1:1 :D
On the full nitrous setup with race gas and cold as hell plugs I only make around 400 rwhp. On the juice Im shooting for 800rwhp:)

800rwhp!!! that car is definently goning to haul some a$$. let use know how it goes.

Tag...about how much the motor can ingest....I really believe its way more than 1 to 1. I think people start seeing minimal gains at higher leverls due to tuning, cam selection, exhaust, etc. Because the motor and those parts where built to operate in that "all motor" area of power. You often hear that to use nitrous you should build the motor to max NA power then spray it.
Well I believe if you built the motor (meaning cam selection, exhaust, valve sizes, exhaust ports, intake) to operate with the amount of HP you have in mind while spraying(like say a 600 shot) you would be less likely to hit that wall. Of course at that point your motor would run lke ass NA. But when you hit the juice...lookout!



Excellent points made here! I also agree in stepping up in small increments. With my car we started with a TNT Wet 200, then I converted over to a NOS Direct Port 300 shot. In the upcomming months I will be jetting up to a 350 and eventually a 400, maybe more.