Nos Hurricane 1000
NOS HURRICANE 1000
ONLY TWO THINGS MIGHT make going to the dentist seem like fun: One, another chance to check out that lovely little hygienist, the one with the engaging smile; or two, if the doc whips a dose of laughing gasaka nitrous oxide—on you.
But there is a higher and better use for nitrous oxide than as an aid to painless dentistry. This stuff, laced with a trace of suphur dioxide to render it useless to recreational sniffers, greatly enhances production of horsepower.
As applied to the NOS Hurricane, (Nitrous Oxide Systems, 5930 Lakeshore Dr., Cypress CA 90630; 714/82 1 -0580), it bumped the power of the bike’s modified engine from about 140 horsepower to an estimated 210. To make this happen, all the rider had to do is mash the NOS button (which doubles as the bike’s horn button when the system’s master switch is deactivated). When he does, a continuous flow of N20 gets squirted into each cylinder’s intake tract. And so does an additional flow of straight fuel via an add-on enrichment circuit which comes as a component of the $500 NOS kit. These two elements are delivered to the intake system via plastic tubing, and they converge in a fogger nozzle screwed into the intake manifolds just downstream of the carburetors. These nozzles, one per cylinder, mix the flow of nitrous and fuel much as a carburetor does, atomizing the gas.
This oxygenand fuel-rich additional mixture is carried into the combustion chamber with the flow of air and fuel already mixed in each cylinder's carburetor, and it substantially enhances each in stance of combustion. The nitro gen's part is to serve as a buffer to slow and control the rate of burn in the combustion chamber. The mixture's overall coldness and density. courtesy of the N20 hav ing been kept in bottles at 850 psi, also aids combustion.
This bike went beyond the basic nitrous kit. It also contained an engine, built for NOS by Patrick Racing (3614 W. Pendleton, Santa Ana, CA 92704; 714/5579280), which carried a 1049cc bigbore kit, 1 1.5:1 compression-ratio pistons, Megacycle cams, valve springs and keepers, Falicon Supercrank and rods, an MSD igniton booster and rev limiter, and Supertrapp mufflers. Engine work plus the NOS kit totalled $2500. The bike’s rear end—the recipient, after all, of all that horsepower—got a wheel widened by Kosman Racing from 3.5 inches to 4.75 inches, and an Öhlins shock. Power was delivered to the tarmac via a 40-tooth sprocket —stock is a 43-tooth piece—and a Metzeier ME 1 Comp K tire.
The result—a 9.89-second quarter-mile and a 174-mph top speed from a machine that’s as docile and tractable as a stocker—is nothing short of astonishing. Never mind the blue nitrous jugs the bike wears so visibly. The result is worth it. And besides, they kind of remind us of our favorite dental hygienist. — Jon F. Thompson
