After the Soundcloud-influenced Xandemic of the late 2010s, everyone was wondering what the next substance of choice would be for the youth of America. Turns out, it’s something old. Young people have been using food-grade nitrous oxide, most notably under the brand name Galaxy Gas, as a party drug (see the New York Times’ story from this week titled “What Is Galaxy Gas, and Why Are Young People Inhaling It?”). Not the smartest idea, but there’s something way cooler you can do with food-grade nitrous oxide, and yes, it involves cars.
Food-grade nitrous oxide is often sold as a culinary whipping agent and well, yeah, it’s pretty much the perfect propellant for whipped cream. Not only does it stop bacteria from reproducing, it fluffs up the cream as it comes out of the nozzle, and it won’t cause the cream to go bad. However, it’s also an anesthetic that, when used recreationally, can result in short-term hallucinogenic states and long-term neurological damage. It’s not a good idea to inhale it. However, there is a third use: make cars go faster.
See, nitrous oxide actually has more oxygen in it than air (which is only about 21% oxygen by weight) does. And while it obviously has less oxygen than O2 (pure oxygen), the benefit of N2O is that it’s not as volatile at lower temperatures/pressures as pure oxygen would be when shoved into an engine with gasoline (N2O breaks down at high temperatures, and then releases oxygen, whereas pure oxygen could lead to instant and uncontrolled combustion). Nitrous’ increased oxygen content over ambient air means more fuel which means a bigger bang, and bigger bangs mean more power. Oh, and there’s another benefit: expanding nitrous oxide actually cools the air inside an engine, and cooler, denser air means more oxygen. Seems like a recipe for winning, right?
Obviously, dedicated nitrous oxide systems for cars have been around for decades, but you’re looking at an investment of a few hundred dollars. So, what if you took a whipped cream charger and hooked it into your car? After all, the only difference should be that the food-grade stuff is flavored with food-like stuff instead of bad-tasting sulfur dioxide, right? Well, that’s exactly what X user Matt Sixberry has done to his Viper V10-swapped Nissan 370Z, using an 80-shot jet.
I’ll post this here since TikTok said no. Spraying my 370z with an 80 shot of Galaxy Gas pic.twitter.com/UEQKhdwj0d
— Matt Sixberry (@matt6berries) September 19, 2024
Sure, a fitting on the bottle, a line ending in front of the throttle body, and a jet on the end of the line might be a little janky, but in theory it could do something for a short pull. Whether it actually provides an appreciable power boost, we don’t know, but it’s worth noting that despite the small 1.35-pound bottle size, that thing’s reportedly pressurized to 180 bar, or 2,610 psi. Hot damn.
Lil Gnar shows the youth how to properly use Galaxy Gas to make your car go faster.
pic.twitter.com/bASZAxl9AX— No Jumper (@nojumper) September 24, 2024
Oh, and Sixberry’s not the only person to have hooked food-grade nitrous oxide into a car. Rapper Lil Gnar hooked some up to his Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and documented the results, and guess what? It looks wild. This has to be one of the best anti-drug PSAs I’ve seen in a while.
Now, here’s the thing about feeding Galaxy Gas into a car: Just running a line with a jet directly from a canister into an intake manifold results in what’s called a “dry nitrous oxide system.” In order to not run into potentially dangerous lean air-fuel ratios, you need to up the fueling, either by manipulating pressure at the fuel rail using a rising-rate fuel pressure regulator or by dialing in added fuel through a tune.
[Ed Note: I actually saw the “Exotic Whip” brand of this for sale at my local gas station when I lived in Troy, Michigan. Exotic whip even has a section on its website discussing nitrous in cars, though the brand is clear to state “Exotic Whip cream chargers are not meant for car fueling. Our bottles are 100% food-grade. This blog is merely informative.” Check it out:
With that said, looking at these other pictures: With the rubber hose just slipped over the bottle’s nozzle, I’m curious what the pressure at the outlet is, and if the engine can even pull in an appreciable amount of N20 relative to ambient air to yield any significant performance gain. I have other concerns, but I’ll just leave it there, as this is Thomas’s post. Maybe we’ll try this out on our Aztek. -DT].
Still, if you’re going to buy Galaxy Gas, use it for whipped cream or put it in your car, not your lungs. Of course, it’s also worth checking to see if the use of nitrous oxide is legal in cars in your jurisdiction, but for track use — even though I don’t know what kind of track will let you run this sort of dirt-cheap, slightly sketchy setup — it should be fine.
(Photo credits: Galaxy Gas, X/Matt Sixberry)
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Important question: Does your exhaust smell like strawberries?
I’d go all-in for a setup with whipped cream injection.
This could wreck the desert catering industry just like the Kendo industry was nearly destroyed once professional wrestlers learned to hit each other with Kendo sticks instead of letting people use them for… Kendo.
*Looks at Project Cactus*
‘Hmm, I’m not sure if buying a bunch of nangs in this ute at the local Mobil is going to be a good look’
Whoa whoa whoa you’re telling me I can *almost* get to 200hp with Strawberry Shortcake nitro? Looks like I’m gonna steer with my knees while juggling the bottle and shifting 🙂
A buddy of mine does demo work and a few years ago he demoed a dentist’s office. In the cleanup, he took home a bunch of medical grade nitrous for a race car project. I don’t think he’s gotten it set up yet, but I imagine it’ll be about as effective as food grade.
No-one really gives a damn about nitro-burning funny cars
https://youtu.be/VqiaouE-rrs?si=5rHR8U088G0t-cve
A few years ago I found a small dry nitrous system for equally small motorcycles. It has a tiny canister (like the CO2 items used in pellet guns), zip ties to attach the canister holder + go-button device to the handlebars, and a piece of clear (?!?) tubing to connect to your intake.
It was about $100 and looked as janky as possible and I still kinda want to try one.
Whippets for your whip: woot!
Hmm… I might need to try this with the rally xB.
As a engineer with a background in hydraulics, NONE of this is delivering an actual 2800 psi into your car. That is what the can is pressurized to. You are getting a bit over atmospheric, 14.7 psi or 1 bar. This seems janky as hell, may as well just spray starting fluid into the intake.
I think most modern computerized systems err lean, so starting fluid might actually give a power boost.
Right, 2800 pounds sounds great but what’s the volume? 20 liters? So that would last about 4 secs in in a 2 liter car at 1000RPM
Who are the people who can afford to Viper swap their car or buy a Trackhawk GC but have to buy their N20 at 7-11?
I like to think this is the automotive version of thinking that drinking 8+ glasses of water a day will dramatically improve your health.
The same type of people that wear an Alpinestars motorcycle jacket–with pads still installed–casually.
Oh to be young and dumb again. Survivor bias is a hell of a drug.
It’s dumb to run food-grade nitrous in a car… you don’t know what other chemical additives are in there and how they might affect your engine. Especially the flavored variants. Those additives might not combust either fully or partially, and eventually those chemicals will build up a potentially sticky residue in the combustion chambers and elsewhere.
If you must run nitrous in your whip (pun intended), please use the automotive grade stuff which is designed to be blasted into your block. I cannot stress that enough.
Do not tell the Big Altima Energy folks that this exists…
The funny thing about the brand Galaxy Gas is that the heads of the company also own a chain of smoke shops. It’s so obvious they’re trying to get people to inhale this stuff.
Even worse is the serving size break down. They claim it’s for whipped cream, but a single bottle of Galaxy Gas has enough Nitrous Oxide for right around a MILLION servings of whipped cream. Not to mention the bottle is so comically that actually using it in a charger would be a gigantic PITA.
It’s essentially the real world equivalent of Giggle Cream in Grand Theft Auto, except they realized they could cut out the middleman and drop the cream part
Your parents were doing Whip-Its way before GTA or Galaxy Gas or a Soundcloud-influenced Xandemic was a thing.
Well, yeah, but to have a branded, trademarked, commercially available product specifically targeted to that use and minimal pretense of it being for anything else is a bit different
But the cans said “Whip” right there on the front! It was implied!
Good point, though.
Yes
Yes we were
If there was a way I could momentarily deprive my brain of oxygen back then, I’d do it.