Nitrogen

[carelessthunder]

Ok I had a previous thread called helium. Well my buddy got his gasses mixed up. So what he really put in his truck tires was nitrogen. He has a Ram 1500 with 20 inch rims. Supposely 2 more miles to the gallon on highway. So I am wondering if anyone else in the Silverado world has done this and got the same results???

[rjeffery]

I know race car drivers do this to make their tires lighter, but I also heard that because the nitrogen molecules are smaller than air, the tire pressure leaks off faster. I would imagine that the leak-off would be worse in a standard street or truck tire compared to a high-performance race tire. The added expense and availability of the N2 may not make it worth it. It might be worth trying though if you have a source of N2 available.

[SLJ2137694]

Originally Posted by rjeffery

I know race car drivers do this to make their tires lighter, but I also heard that because the nitrogen molecules are smaller than air, the tire pressure leaks off faster. I would imagine that the leak-off would be worse in a standard street or truck tire compared to a high-performance race tire. The added expense and availability of the N2 may not make it worth it. It might be worth trying though if you have a source of N2 available.

Race car drivers would use it because the tire pressure remains consistant and does not get higher as the tire builds heat, not because it is lighter.

[rockwood84]

yeah a lot of people are using nitrogen in their tires as it keeps pressure constant and some say makes the tires run longer ,more even wear.

[j cAT]

Originally Posted by rockwood84

yeah a lot of people are using nitrogen in their tires as it keeps pressure constant and some say makes the tires run longer ,more even wear.

costco uses nitrogen it's not pure but very high percentage....i have found that the pressures don't vary with temps....from 20deg f to 90 deg f the pressure changes little...also as nitrogen is a denser gas it leaks out less..because it lacks oxygen the wheels should suffer less corrosion damage inside the rim.....

[silveradofirerescu]

I prefer a 70% nitrogen mix in my tires. Then I add 28% oxygen to keep the molecules big enough to not leak out and then I add some other various elements to keep the temperature down. It works for me....

[kahjdh]

Originally Posted by silveradofirerescu

I prefer a 70% nitrogen mix in my tires. Then I add 28% oxygen to keep the molecules big enough to not leak out and then I add some other various elements to keep the temperature down. It works for me....

How do you do that? Little extreme eh?

[j cAT]

Originally Posted by kahjdh

How do you do that? Little extreme eh?

That is pure B/S...!

[silveradofirerescu]

It is the make up of the atmosphere... basically I was stating that I just fill my tires with air, but it sounded way more technical that way. Sorry guys for the confusion.

[Sonny01]

Aircraft use nitrogen in their tires because it doesn't have moisture in it that can freeze at high altitude.

[03CavyMan]

The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen already, the machine we have at the dealership for inflating tires with nitrogen is 98%. The claim of fame with nitrogen is that it doesn't fluctuate pressure as temperature changes. With normal air your tires will change in pressure by about 4psi. With the nitrogen it's only supposed to change 0.5psi between hot and cold temps. In our climate up here it changes a bit more than that in the winter when it dips down to 30 below though. Most of the customers that have it swear by it!

[carelessthunder]

allright filled the tires with Nitrogen. A couple of days later went on a trip to SC. About 600 mile round trip. Gas mileage improvement was not there. The only thing i think it did was maybe the tires were cooler. Maybe

[silicon212]

I would not expect the nitrogen to increase fuel economy. Pure snake oil in this instance. However, as the others above have stated, there is plenty of evidence that nitrogen maintains steady tire pressures over a wide range of operating temperatures. On a normal street vehicle, it's likely wasted as you won't see the true benefits (in most cases but not all). On a NASCAR race car, it keeps the pressure steady so the set up of the car is minimally affected, meaning the car is less likely to become 'loose' or 'tight' on a long run, outside of tire wear.