Defiant is right on the money with the fuel-oxygen level. You just run richer on the fuel side.
This is yet ANOTHER reason why having Nitrous in a street car is a joke. You have to run lower compression, richer fuel mixture and retarded ignition timing. These all add to poor fuel economy and loss of horse power when you are not using a forced oxygen induction system, being nitrous oxide, propane (in a diesel) a turbocharger or a supercharger.
It essentially does the same thing to a combustion that high amounts of boost does, only in a different dose amount and atributes to higher BTU levels in the fuel, hotter and quicker combustion conditions and nitrous itself is pressure sensitive to temperature. Nitrous oxide increases or decreases 1-2 PSI with every single temperature differ in Ferrenheit. This is about 10-11HP increase or decrease with every degree of bottle temperature increase or decrease.
Example:
72 degrees F= Advertised HP shot (say it's an advertised 50hp@72 degreesF)
+1 degree F= 73 degrees F= 65-66HP
-1 degree F= 71 degrees F= 44-45HP
+10 degrees F= 82 degrees F= 150HP
These numbers change so drasticly that a 5 degree temperature change inside the bottle can be volatle to your engines combustion condition and the only real way to know what to expect is to use a bottle temperature controller (heater/cooler) for the correct temperature for your desired HP shot of nitrous. This is usually monitored and controlled by the same nitrous computer that controls your A/F ratio, timing and shot PSI...
You wouldn't boost your car without metering the air/fuel ratio, so why would you run nitrous oxide without a controller made for it?
This all means that if you run a car that has nitrous oxide, even if you use it at WOT and when you're supposed to inject it, whenever you're not using it, your car WILL run like shit. This is because the fuel level, timing and compression (if you buy the right low compression forged pistons for nitrous) are all tuned for the nitrous and can not run correctly without it.
Even if you have a controller for the timing nitrous/fuel and nitrous temp, if you have the right pistons for nitrous, there is no adjustment in initial compression ratio, so you will still see some loss in HP when you are not using it over the same engine that does not use nitrous to begin with.
I have seen idiots throw their bottle into a bathtub full of 140 degree water and run... guess what happened?
This is ALL aside from the govorning factor that it WILL take thousands of miles from the lifespan of the engine as sacrifice for using nitrous oxide under the correct methods.
Nitrous is for race cars that only see minimal running time and maintained with a magnifying glass after every race.
