How to Install Nitrous on Your Small Block V8 (1972 Challenger)

A plate-style NOS nitrous kit, a Mopar small-block, and a set of suspiciously modern Dodge Challenger wheels come together in this Horsepower Wars install video, but the dyno numbers sparked more debate than the wrench work. While the crew walks through fuel enrichment, timing retard, and purge-line basics on a project car that might be running a stroked 402 cubic inch small-block, one commenter wasnt buying the horsepower gain shown on the Dynojet pulls. Is the modest bump proof that plate nitrous has limits, or is there more going on under that hood than the numbers let on?

Adding a nitrous kit to a small-block sounds simple on paper, bolt it on, hit the button, watch the dyno climb. This build complicates that story before the first pull even happens. The classic Mopar project car at the center of this video rides on a wheel package that looks suspiciously like it came off a brand-new Dodge Challenger, already blurring old and new before nitrous enters the picture. Then the plate system goes on under the carburetor, safety checks get walked through, and the dyno pulls come back looking almost too modest for what one commenter suspects is a stroked 402 cubic inch small-block underneath. Did the install actually deliver, or did something get left on the table?

A Familiar Face Behind the Wheel: Horsepower Wars Goes Nitrous

This installment comes from the Horsepower Wars corner of the Power Automedia and Street Legal TV media family, a group of channels well known among grassroots racers for detailed, no-nonsense build content rather than flashy reveals. The premise here is straightforward on the surface: take a project car, add a plate-style nitrous system from NOS, and measure the gains on the shop’s Dynojet chassis dyno with clean before-and-after pulls. What makes this particular episode worth watching isn’t just the install itself, it’s the way the video treats nitrous as approachable technology rather than something reserved for full-time racers. For anyone who’s watched turbo and supercharger installs eat an entire weekend and a five-figure budget, a bolt-on nitrous plate system demonstrated step by step on camera is exactly the kind of content that gets bookmarked and referenced later.

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What’s Really Under That Hood – And On Those Wheels

The car itself draws almost as much attention as the install. Based on the description and the Mopar small-block doing the work, this is very likely a classic Dodge or Plymouth E-body, the Challenger and Barracuda platform that defined Mopar’s muscle car era, serving as the project vehicle. One detail that lit up the comments has nothing to do with horsepower at all: the modern Dodge Challenger wheels fitted to the car, a styling choice that bridges six decades of Mopar design in a single glance. It’s a small but telling example of how classic muscle car builds increasingly borrow parts bins from their modern descendants, blending factory-fresh fitment and tire selection with an engine bay that’s pure old-school small-block, right down to the carburetor the nitrous plate is about to sit under.

Plate Nitrous vs. Foggers: Why This System Is the Simple Choice

Nitrous systems generally split into two camps: fogger kits, which spray nitrous and fuel directly into each intake runner for maximum, evenly distributed power, and plate systems, which inject both through a single plate sandwiched between the carburetor and the intake manifold. Plate kits are the simpler, more affordable entry point, and that’s exactly why this build uses one. Installation doesn’t require drilling and tapping each intake runner or plumbing individual injector lines to every cylinder, which keeps both the cost and the complexity dramatically lower than a full fogger setup. The tradeoff is slightly less precise distribution across all eight cylinders compared to a well-tuned fogger system, but for a street car chasing a healthy, reliable power bump rather than record-setting numbers, that tradeoff is one most builders are happy to accept.

Inside the NOS Power Shot Kit

The specific kit installed here is a NOS Power Shot system, NOS being the brand most associated with nitrous oxide in performance culture, now under the Holley umbrella alongside other well-known aftermarket names. Power Shot kits are positioned as an entry-level option, delivering a fixed, moderate horsepower bump rather than the adjustable, multi-stage jetting found in higher-end race systems. That makes them a natural fit for a Mopar small-block street car looking for a noticeable but manageable gain rather than a full competition-spec setup. The kit includes the plate itself, nitrous and fuel solenoids, the bottle and mounting hardware, and the wiring and switches needed to arm and activate the system safely, giving a builder everything necessary to go from a naturally aspirated small-block to one with a genuine shot of nitrous on tap.

Safety First: The Nitrous Checklist Nobody Should Skip

No nitrous install video is complete without walking through the safety fundamentals, and this one treats that step as essential rather than an afterthought. Adding nitrous without also enriching the fuel mixture is one of the fastest ways to destroy an engine, since the extra oxygen nitrous provides needs a proportional increase in fuel to avoid a dangerously lean condition. Ignition timing typically needs to be retarded when the system activates, since nitrous increases cylinder pressure and effectively advances combustion timing on its own. A purge line, which briefly vents the feed line to clear any vaporized nitrous before a pull, ensures the first hit of the button delivers a full, consistent charge rather than a weak sputter. Covering these basics on camera is exactly the kind of practical detail that separates a genuinely useful build video from one that just shows the fun part.

Putting It on the Dyno: Before and After

The payoff of any install video is the dyno numbers, and this one delivers with clean before-and-after pulls on the shop’s Dynojet chassis dyno. Running the car in its naturally aspirated state first establishes a baseline, then repeating the pull with the nitrous system armed and activated shows exactly how much the Power Shot kit adds under controlled, repeatable conditions rather than a seat-of-the-pants street guess. Dyno testing like this matters because it strips out variables like traction, weather, and driver technique that can skew a real-world time slip, isolating the engine’s actual output gain. For viewers considering a similar kit on their own small-block, watching a real before-and-after pull, rather than just being told a number, is far more convincing evidence that a modest plate system can deliver a genuine, verifiable jump in horsepower.

Why Mopar Small-Blocks Keep Getting the Nitrous Treatment

Mopar’s small-block family, the 318, 340, and 360 cubic inch engines, has remained a favorite nitrous platform for budget-conscious builders for decades, and this video is a good example of why. These engines are plentiful, relatively inexpensive to source and rebuild compared to big-block Mopar options, and their factory architecture tolerates moderate nitrous shots without requiring the extensive internal reinforcement that a serious power adder demands on more fragile designs. That combination of affordability and durability has made the small-block Mopar a staple of grassroots drag and street builds since the nitrous era took off in the 1980s and 1990s, and it’s exactly the kind of practical, attainable performance upgrade this video is aimed at, rather than a six-figure show car built purely for display.

The Pansy Numbers Debate – Is This Really a 402 Stroker?

Not everyone in the comments walked away fully convinced by the dyno results. One viewer joked that the gains looked like pansy numbers for what they suspected was a 402 cubic inch stroker build, a jab that hinges on an interesting assumption: that this small-block has already been bored and stroked well past its factory displacement before the nitrous kit was ever added. If that’s accurate, a modest-looking gain on paper could still represent a meaningful jump in real-world power once stacked on top of an already-built stroker combination, even if the percentage increase looks smaller than a nitrous shot on a stock small-block would produce. It’s the kind of good-natured skepticism that comes with any dyno reveal, and it’s a reminder that raw numbers rarely tell the whole story without knowing exactly what’s already been built into the engine underneath.

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