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Fast and the Furious, The - Nos Flammable?
At the time that Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are looking at Paul's Eclipse after it has been shot at by the Asian gang they turn to each other and yell "NOS!!" then the car blows up. But since when is Nitrous Oxide flammable?? Nos can blow OUT a lit match!
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Contributed By:
lowridin_guy on 08-01-2001
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Comments:
Chaos writes:
You need to go back and take some more automotive classes. As common sense would have it, anything that goes into an internal combustion engine is going to burn. However, the NOS that caused the Eclipse to explode was not the Nitrous Oxide left in the tank. Liquid Nitrous Oxide is not flammable. However, once the nitrous oxide leaves the the tank it is in the gaseous state and then becomes HIGHLY flammable. The Eclipse exploding was caused by the ignition of the excess oxygen left in the car. Thank you and goodbye.
176 of 222 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
Tiron writes:
Short Lesson: How Nitrous Oxide makes a car go faster. Nitrous Oxide, N20, is NOT flammable by itself. At high temperatures(in excess of 500 degrees F), it breaks down into it's two components. 2 N2O become 2 N2 and 1 O2. N2O is 38% oxygen by weight. Normal atmosphere(the stuff you're breathing *right now*, and the stuff that goes into your car engine too) is about 78% Nitrogen(N2) and about 21% Oxygen(O2). So when the Nitrous breaks down, it adds a greater concentration of oxygen than is present in normal air. Extra fuel must simultaneously be added, and the extra oxygen is used to provide the bigger bang. Same thing a turbo or supercharger does, getting more oxygen in the cylinder so you can burn more gas. Nitrous is also more dense than normal air, adding even more oxygen to the equation. In addition, when nitrous converts into a gas from a liquid when it is injected, it cools down VERY rapidly, which also lowers the air temperature in the intake by as much as 75F, increasing the air density and allowing more oxygen into the cylinder yet again, the same way an intercooler does for a turbo system. There are two credible explanations for the explosion in the movie. First off, if the temperature was high enough to split the N2O, it would add more oxygen and accelerate the fire. The pressure valves may have still been open as well, so if the lines burned through it could have been spraying out the lines. If it overpressured, it would possibly have blown the safety valve and started venting right into the middle of the fire. Explanation two is pretty simple. Nitrous tanks are commonly kept at around 900-950PSI(requiring a temperature of 88-100 degrees F or so, so they're pretty warm to begin with) for races, and sometimes up to 1000 PSI. A 33.5 pound tank rupturing can create enough force just from the concussion to cause heavy damage to the car and anything near it(Happened with a Nitrous Express bottle when the heater was left on, google for it, pictures even). Even if the nitrous didn't catch fire and explode, the concussion from his twin 'big tanks' rupturing would have been enourmous. Boom. Problem is, if that was the case, the fire probably wouldn't have mushroomed like that... And of course remember that in Hollywood...EVERYTHING is filled with high explosives. ;)
31 of 32 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
evilthecat writes:
NOX, or NO2 is not flammable, however the oxygen in it is an accelerant. It takes three parts to forum a fire. Fuel, Oxygen, and Heat. If you have a fire, then blow pure oxygen, or nitrous oxide into it, it will burn a lot hotter. Not to mention that it is pressurized, so that when exposed to a high enough level of heat, the tank will rupture. Pressurized oxygen and fire do not mix, at all. Why do you think smoking is forbidden around houses where oxygen tanks are in use?
16 of 21 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
Laura writes:
I would like to mention that the explosion could also have been caused by the excessive heat on the bottle filled with the compressed liquid. Anything under that much pressure is really dangerous.
17 of 28 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
ds writes:
#1 Nitrous Oxide does not create the flames that come out of your tail pipe. To create flames from a tail pipe people inject propane or gas into there tail pipe and use a spark plug at the end to ignite the gas.. But in the case of this movie it was probably fake. #2 As far as I know Nitrous Oxide contains around 38% oxygen. BUT it is the nitrous oxide is no broken down to release the oxygen until around 520 degrees. There is no way that car got that hot that fast. Also even at 520 degrees there is still no fuel present in nitrous oxide. It only will help a fire burn better at that temp.. There is no way that car would have blown up..
9 of 14 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
Chaos writes:
That's true Laura, and Liquid Nitrous Oxide wont explode, ever, because of the Nitrogen added to the compound. And if the bottle was to explode from excessive heat, it wouldn't cause the whole car to blow up unless there was pure oxygen somewhere still in the car. I think this slipup has been officially been resolved! =) Gee, aren't we smart?
13 of 23 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
lonewolf writes:
the flames out of the exhuast are not caused by N.O.S, at all, it is caused by a small device put just inside the exhaust pipe, which in the mixture of fumes coming out of the pipe is a mixture of unused fuel, this kit that you attach to the pipe ignites that unused fuel, which inturn creates the flames, which can be ajusted etc. (http://www.gotflames.net/hypercart/news.asp) i sujest that before you make a comment on a subject that you dont really understand, you at least do some research first,
4 of 6 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
flo033 writes:
I guess you haven't been to a real drag-way and seen a nitrous explosion before. Nitrous when used improperly or tampered with can be HIGHLY flammable.
12 of 23 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
TunerGuyBC writes:
In the real world flames coming from the tailpipe of a true racecar are caused by unburned fuel being ignited by a red hot exhaust tip. That's not what would happen on these cars because 1)they hadn't done any thing to get their exhaust hot, and 2)they would all have catalytic converters which prevent unburned fuel from getting to the exhaust tip. So, all the cars in the movie had to have been using the hot rodder method with the propane and the spark plug.
5 of 9 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
snoopay writes:
Chaos (and everyone who agreed with him, i didn't read every post) is wrong, tiron is right. Cailin, Nitrous Oxide is not flammable, ever, hydrogen is (very, and the hydrogen rx8, which i want, is the only hydrogen car to outperform the fassil fuel version of it). The reason it is used (i'm summing it up) is because the extra oxygen allows more of the fuel to be burned and creates a bigger bang, adding instant horsepower. It's like a turbo or supercharger, only no spin up time, and it's illegal.
0 of 0 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
Hack Ace writes:
NOS tanks WILL explode and DO NOT need pure oxygen tanks to burn; the reaction comes from the oxygen in the atmosphere. But don't just take my word for it, go read the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for yourself. Go here: http://www.mathesongas.com/msds/NitrousOxide.htm Read section three about PHYSICAL HAZARDS. The explosions were NOT a slipup.
6 of 15 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
Rageaholic writes:
Nitrus Oxide is a fuel accelerant, if added to a pre-existing flame, it will cause the flame to burn hotter, and faster, (hence the excess horse power output in the engine), a gasoline fire, (which was present in the car, burns at approx. 640 degrees farenheit, if you notice the placement of the tanks in the eclipse, they are almost on top of the gas tank, so the heat would have caused the tanks to burst almost immediately, on top of which, there is nothing stating, that a bullet from the scene didnt already puncture the tank, so the explosion is quite, possible, if not all together probable.
0 of 3 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
Jeffro writes:
NOS isn't what causes the flames out the tail-pipes. Those are cherry-bombs. It would have been impossible for the cars to be sitting at the line and firing NOS out the tailpipes considering they hadn't even hit a shot of NOS yet, and you can only use NOS with the throttle wide open.
2 of 14 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
ProVElite writes:
I'm not a racing freak, but doesn't NOS create the flames that come out of your tail-pipe?
8 of 41 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes
caillin writes:
A) it's N.O.X not N.O.S. And B) why would they use it in the car if it isn't flammable.
2 of 44 people found this comment helpful. Did you? Yes


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