New post plasma nitriding can achieve a high uniformity that have been difficult in DC nitriding and have a high productivity comparable to gas nitriding. However, it has not a enough high nitriding potential for a rapid nitriding, because surface activation or ion etching in the general plasma nitriding cannot be expected. Thus, in this study, the effects of pre-treatments with oxidation and reduction gas have been investigated to improve the nitriding kinetics of post plasma nitriding. An effective pre-treatment consisting of oxidation and reduction resulted in the increase of surface energy of STD 11. This induced the surface hardness and the effective nitriding depth of STD 11. It is thought that the increase of the surface energy and the surface area with pre-treatment promote the nucleation of nitriding layer.