How to test for leaks with nitrous bottle? Any recalls on bottles?
 

i think my bottle has aleak in it at the nozzle end. How do i test to see if it does. i just filled it up and tightened her down good. I did not hear any leak coming from the bottle end, or under the hood. How do i test it effectively? Also, someone told me that thes NOS bottles are notorious for leaking. and said that it may have a recall on it! has anyone ever heard about this? Thanks for replies!

hey man, i have a zex bottle, and it did leak on me one time. im not too sure about the nos bottles, but my bottle has a hard plastic o-ring to seal between the bottle neck and the valve. I had some guy at the track fill it up, and he said it blew the o-ring. i was pissed because i only had it filled once before. i emptied it completely and checked the o-ring, it looked fine. i placed it back in there, tightened it up, and it hasnt given me a prob since. one way to test it besides just listening could be weighing it if you dont have a pressure guage. put it on a digital scale , then weigh it again later. good luck bro - John

thanks john- all ive done so far is hook it back up, tighten it real good. maybe i wont use it for a few weeks and see if it has lost any weight. I will lose some NOS when closing the valve again and disconnecting, btu should that affect significantly how much pressure is in there?

it shouldnt lose enough pressure that you wouldnt be able to tell if you have a leak or not. another thing you could do is wet the rim of the bottle and look for bubbling, kinda like what you would do to find the hole in a bike tire tube. forgot to mention that on the last post. - John

What he said. Pretty much submerge it under water.

Kinda funny, though. The only leak I ever had was from a bad solenoid, and it left lightning-bolt shaped streaks of ice! Kinda hard to miss!

:)

Take care,
~Chris

very strange- i just tried to use it and nothing happened at all. i heard a click (the solenoid i guess) but nothing happened. Im going to try to connect the two wires to the fpss and see if it works then. if it does, then i need a new switch i think!

ill try the submerging in water as well! thanks

if there is a leak you should be able to see the ice crystals form wherever its leaking....

leaking nitrous
 

Check underneath the car where you run the nitrous line, mine was leaking from the line which very easy to spot because nitrous is very cold you can see from outside the line where it's leak. If you are not going to use nitrous for more than couple days, I would shut off the bottle because no matter how tight you think you shut everything off the gas will try to escape and usually they'd find their way outta there.

yeah you should always turn off your bottle and clear the lines whenever you are done using it, taking the pressure off the seals and solenoids greatly decreases the chances of a future problem. John

thanks for all replies. I actually bypassed the fuel pressure safety switch and it worked. that tells me that i have a bad fpss. ( i know the fuel pressure is adequete from prior tests). i have not seen any ice build up. very strange, maybe i didnt tighten it enough before and it leaked out very slowly. this system is less than 6 months old! do you think i can send back the fpss and get a new one for free?

yessss!!

Do something I used to do when I worked at a Paintball Shop and had to test bottles for leaks. Spray a liberal amount of windex on the bottle and where you suspect the leak is. It will bubble up severly if you have a tiny leak..


Gol10dr

thanks again, i am going to call up NOS and wait for about 30 minutes long distance, then probably get the run-around about not being able to return it. well see. i dont think i have the receipt anymore. they should take it back though (i hope). i dont want to bypass the fpss forever!