Nitrous Bottle Mounting and Main Line Install
With the new ignition installed, it was time to begin installing the Zex nitrous system. I picked up the base kit itself from Summit for around $600.00. However, the kit does not include a pressure gauge for the bottle or a bottle heater. These are two items that FordMuscle and myself agree are necessary even for a basic first time nitrous system. Bottle heaters are surprisingly expensive for what they do at about $130.00. The Zex gauge ran for $45.00

First, I found a nice location just behind the passenger seat in the trunk to mount the bottle.		After marking and drilling four holes, I got underneath the car and tightened the hardware. This is a little something I learned to do when working alone (see four combination wrenches).
Here's the gauge I picked up in addition to the kit, the gauge is critical for verifying that your bottle pressure is at least between 900 and 1000 psi for proper function.		The gauge being installed carefully.
The bottle mounted.		I knocked a 1" hole in the trunk floorboard to route the main nitrous line.
I added a grommet to protect the line from sheetmetal.		Here I am popping the line up through the trunk floorboard heading for the nitrous bottle.
The main line attached to the bottle.		Next, I began routing the main line along the frame of the Torino.
I tied wrapped the line along the way.		In fact, I just ran the line along the factory fuel lines from the trunk to the motor compartment.
Here's a shot of the main line routed all the way up to the motor compartment.

Nitrous Bottle Heater Install
The key to getting the advertised horsepower power from any nitrous system is maintaining proper and consistent bottle pressure. As with any compressed gas, pressure is a function of volume and temperature. A full bottle will have higher pressure than one near empty. A cold bottle will have lower pressure versus a warm bottle. Nitrous systems work as advertised when the bottle pressure is 900-1000 psi. With lower pressures nitrous flow will be reduced and the resulting nitrous-fuel mixture will be excessively rich. Higher bottle pressures will lead to a dangerously lean mixture.

One can imagine that with fluctuations in outside temperature, and as nitrous is consumed, achieving consistent nitrous performance can be challenging. The solution is to control and monitor bottle pressure. Using a nitrous bottle heater we can apply heat to the bottle exterior in a safe and gradual manner. A thermostatically controlled switch makes the task fully automated, however simply monitoring a pressure gauge also gets the job done properly. We don’t recommend applying heat via a torch or other methods, as pressurized cylinders quickly become bombs under too much heat. When the pressure is between 900-1000 psi you can be assured that the nitrous flow is matched to the fuel jetting, resulting in the proper mixture, therefore a bottle heater is a mandatory part of a proper nitrous system.

Here is the Zex bottle heater I purchased from Summit for $125.00		I wanted to mount both the bottle heater switch and the primary nitrous arming switch in my center console.
More on the complete nitrous system wiring later. However, I wanted to remove and install the console once so while I wired the bottle heater switch (passenger side), I went ahead and mounted and pre-wired the primary nitrous arming switch (driver's side). The large hole above the switches is from another project, IPOD jack.		Here is the underside of the console showing the wiring. The red and white wires heading opposite directions (pictured right) are for the bottle heater. The red and white wires that are taped and heading the same direction (pictured left) are for the primary nitrous arming switch. Again, we'll pick that up in the wiring section to follow.
Now it was time to reinstall the center console.		Here is the console reinstalled, the wires on the driver's floorboard are for the primary arming switch. The single red wire on the passenger floorboard is from the bottle heater switch and bound for 12V Key On. You do not see the white wire from the bottle heater switch since it is headed out the back of the center console... in the direction of the bottle itself.
The 12V Key On wire from bottle heater switch was spliced and a 30 amp fuse was added.		Prior to this project, I had created a 12V Key On terminal block just above the HyFire 6.6 box. The black relay "powers" the terminal. I connected the 12V Key On wire from the bottle heater switch to this terminal block.
Next, I turned the ignition key to the "on" position and flipped on the bottle heater switch.		I verified that the white wire had 12V before making the connections in the trunk.
Here's the white wire from the bottle heater switch coming from the interior into the trunk.		I wrapped the heater blanket around the bottle and connected the 12V white wire to red and grounded the black wire from the blanket to the trunk pan.
Back in the car, I turned the ignition key "on" and flipped the bottle heater switch.		In a matter of seconds, the bottle heater began to warm up. Depending on the temperature of the bottle, it'll take 30-60 minutes to reach 900 psi.

(Plumbing)