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i just had to pick my topic for my discussion speech...their were three topics left i could chose from(i was absence the day they picked)....well there was...vacation spots...down syndrome...and increase a cars performance..so you know which one i picked...but i looked up alot of info and couldnt find much...is there a way people could explain how for instance a cold air intake, supercharger, nos, or any other part works technically...please help me out here..

 
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ur not serious right?? go to the FAQ's all ur answers will be solved there

 
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Yup if you want a some info on turbos and stuff you can check www.clubsi.com they have some brief info and for Nitrous as you call NOS this is the most descriptive post ever The Nitrous Post JOEB16 aka HondaGuru

 
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Well, let's see how general, but useful I can make this.

When I explain this to people who have no clue how engines work, this is how I explain it.

An engine "inhales" or breathes in air through the intake and mixes this air with a proportionate amount of fuel, thus creating an explosive mixture. This mixture is compressed in the engine and then ignited to explode. The force of this explosion drives the parts that drive the car. The more air and fuel, the more explosive. There's more to this, but that's the basics. For more on basics, look up combustion engines on www.howstuffworks.com.

Now.... let's start with the intake. A cold air intake attempts to get colder air into an engine for it's air/fuel mixture. Why? Well the explosive part of atmospheric air is oxygen. The more oxygen, the better. Colder air is more dense, and thus contains more oxygen. So, the colder the air, the more powerful the mixture explodes, giving you more power.

A supercharger or turbo runs off of this concept as well. A supercharger takes in air, then compresses it (measured in the US as PSI or pounds per square inch). Again, the more compressed the air is, the more dense, thus more oxygen, thus more power. See a pattern here?

Lastly, you have nitrous. Nitrous is an oxydizer, meaning it reacts physically to another substance (that being atmospheric air) to release oxygen from it's mixture. (It's 2 parts nitrogen, 1 part oxygen) However, nitrous in itself is extremely dense, and holds about 50% more oxygen by volume than atmospheric air. so when nitrous is released, it reacts to release the oxygen, thus greatly increasing power. However, another part to this, is the reaction of nitrous when released creates extremely cold temperatures, meaning it also drastically cools the air going into the engine.... again, colder air, means more power. So nitrous actually works two fold as a power adder.

Now these are the basics, so I hope it helps. I left out a lot more technical information and there's a lot more to the story for each, but this should help you explain it to your every day "joe".