It turns out that Carter was contemplating his nitrous system when he noticed his son playing video games. Soon his son's video game controller was retooled as Carter's nitrous controller. No fancy stuff here, Carter actually relies on a wide open throttle switch for his first stage, and a joystick to control his second and third stage.
THE TRICK IS IN THE "TUNE"
Just because you throw together a big nitrous system doesn't mean you can set the world on fire. All three people we talked to have spent considerable time tuning their trucks on the dyno and at the track to find what combination of jet sizes their vehicles like. For Riles, the better part of a day at the track was spent setting the ramp rates on his progressive controller, and the truck still didn't launch like he wanted. Most also were kind of tight-lipped on jetting, though both Riles and Carter ran over a .100 jet in all three stages, while Brown uses smaller jets and more stages to make his power. Either way, if you're willing to venture into the world of big-power nitrous with your own custom system, you'll have to be prepared to do some tuning.
 Solenoids also must be up...  Solenoids also must be up to snuff when running a lot of juice. Try to find the biggest solenoids available; otherwise, they can become a limiting factor. Each solenoid will usually flow about 200-300 hp worth of nitrous. Everyone we talked to also ran at least -6 feed line up to the solenoids to ensure that the bottle to the solenoid connection would offer no restrictions. |  At Hot Rod's Drag Week, Brian...  At Hot Rod's Drag Week, Brian Carter helped show the gasoline guys just how fast a big diesel can be. |  But oops, notice the cop?...  But oops, notice the cop? Nitrous is illegal to run on the street, so make sure your bottle valve is closed or your line disconnected when you go cruising. |
 Believe it or not, Carter's...  Believe it or not, Carter's second and third stages are joystick-activated. We think he played a few too many video games when he was young. |  You can see Carter's nitrous...  You can see Carter's nitrous bottles just peeking out of the bed. He's another nitrous user who believes in keeping bottle pressure up, running two bottles along with twin bottle heaters. |  At the J&H event, we also...  At the J&H event, we also got to see Richard Brown's truck make an impressive dyno pull. Unfortunately for us, his truck is in the chassis shop right now getting a full rollcage installed, so we couldn't get any pictures of his impressive nitrous system. |