Load Balancer / Nginx response times

Ezra,

I am testing a new APP with

EY Load balancer + ngnix + mongrel handler

This app gives me a throughput of 20 per second without nginx but when I
run
the same application with several mongrel ports say 25 and nginx
configured
as the reverse proxy with e-y load balancer, most requests are OK and
return
responses in less than 1 second [which is what the application is
expected
to do] but sometimes the responses are >3 seconds. I strongly believe
that
this is got to do with the nginx / load balancer which is taking time to
identify available http ports to route the requests. Any way that this
can
be speeded up to <500 ms for the routing + 500 ms response from the
application?.

Thoughts are welcome. Thank you in advance.

regards

Asif A.