Anybody have a review and/or comparison of Crawford Z headers vs Nismo Headers?

Sound change, hp/tq changes, etc.

TIA,
Anthony

 

You might want to take a look at my350Z.com which is the sister site to Driver. There is some good tech discussion over there on nismo's and crawfords. I was in the same boat and could not get much feedback on the nismo's on this site.

The search function does not appear to be working over there this morning. Here is the link to the intake/exhaust forum:

http://my350z.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=334

 

Crawford:
$1149.00
True equal length header design, individually hand-crafted
Not a "shorty header" design. Longest header replacement available for the G or Z.
Highest claimed/proven gains from any header for the G or Z (next closest is Alphaworks).
Not stainless steel thin walled tubing. (Thick Stainless is good, but thin wall stainless is bad, can crack easily under heat cycling).
Thick tooling steel construction
Precise bolt-on installation
Most Difficult install
Comes powdercoated for corrosion prevention
Almost twice as much gain as the Nismo headers over the same portion of the power band. *Crawford only provides dyno charts with cats, headers and plenum.

Nismo:
$1195.00
100 percent T-304 Stainless steel contruction
Equal length tubing, individually hand-crafted
Precise bolt-on installation
1.625 primary tube stepped up to 1.750" diameter
2.25" collector
Heavy-duty 3/8 flange
Difficult install
9 HP increase over 3800-6200 rpm range at rear wheels
13 HP and 13 lb-ft maximum increase at rear wheels

 

I was able to track down the Nismo dyno on my350z. The two posts and one attachment that relate to this are listed below. Take a look for the posts from daytona350z. This is the only dyno I have been able to find that is pre and post Nismo header with no other mods. (Around 11hp and 17tq gain.) I have not been able to find a pre and post Crawford header dyno with no other mods.


http://www.my350z.com/forum/showthre...=nismo+headers

http://www.my350z.com/forum/attachme...chmentid=64521

http://www.my350z.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104285

 

These two posts are what I found most interesting...

http://www.my350z.com/forum/showpost...7&postcount=36

http://www.my350z.com/forum/showpost...1&postcount=41

And my favorite quote of all... "With the plenum rebalancing out the air intake of the oem plenum, to the new headers which span almost double the length of anything else popular on the market, then exiting the highest flowing oem appearance cats... one will find their Z (G) with an near extra 20 hp at peak... and a huge near 40 hp at redline!"

 

Was that your favorite quote because of grammatical mistakes, the outrageous power claims, the plenum comment or just all of it?

Edit: sorry, I just saw where you got the quote from and why there are grammatical errors. Wow! Do those headers really make that much hp??!?! It's kind of hard to believe that Nissan/Infiniti would leave out that much power.

 

Well, enough people have bought them and spoken highly of them, plus others have done dynos with other mods and are in the 265-275rwhp range with headers, exhaust, cats, plenum and pulley.
Not really. Nissan designs things that;

(1) work well enough and

(2) go together well on an assembly line.

If they can design a shorter, easier to make header (reads cheaper) then they'll do it in a split second. Doug's headers, being 2x or more longer than stock don't fit into the car ideally, nor do they leave room for the addition of heat shields. Most people are not concerned with this type of performance from a "luxury vehicle" if it adds tremendous costs to the buyer. Remember Nissan designs a specific car at a specific price point. Doug designs performance headers for a small fraction of the Z and G's customer base. Heck his headers are 3-4% of the total vehicle cost.

Why pay $1150 for a set of headers that gain ~9-13rwhp (and torque) when another guy (Doug Steward) makes a set that gains just over 20rwhp (and torque) for the same price.

It's all about the engineering, testing, flow bench, re-engineering, re-testing, flowbench, ETC... Until the best possible solution is achieved.

 

Ok, help me out here. Crawford is saying 20HP at peak with headers, plenum and cats. Daytona350Z got 11HP at peak with Nismo headers without any plenum or cats. I would think the Crawford plenum and cats together would generate around the added 9HP at peak as part of the 20 advertised.

If this is not the case and the Crawford headers are generating more than 11HP at peak as a standalone mod, then the combo of the cats and plenum must be generating less than 9HP at peak. (If the contribution of one mod goes up in reaching the 20HP goes up, the contribution of the other must go down.)

Given this, and if (and that is a big if) Daytona350Z's 11HP is correct and the Crawford cats and plenum make greater than 9HP, the Nismo with the Crawford cats and plenum should create greater, or at least equal, the full Crawford package of 20HP at peak.

I understand that this is not as simple as I am making it and one mod at 5HP and another one at 6HP does not=11hp. Also, I am only working off of one person's dyno, Daytona350Z. Lastly, I am only looking at one point on the curve. However, we do have the end result Crawford's 20HP at peak with all three mods.

 

Doug also claims a 40hp increase at fuel cutoff with all of the mods. This adds a significant amount of power under the curve. Don't always look at peak numbers, the NISMO may have added 11hp at peak by its self but if it tapers off after that then you will have a slower car. The increased high rpm intake breathing afforded by the crawford plenum gets you more power all the way to redline which is more desirable than an 11hp peak increase.

 

Information so far is helpful. But I still want to know about sound difference.
I'm sure both increase exhaust sound, but I was told by Rob at Z Car Garage
that the Crawford headers are the loudest, by how much I don't know. That
would be an issue with approval.

Thanks,
Anthony

 

Well Tony, once you get the Crawford Plenum, the Crawford Cats and the Nismo Headers, we'll know for sure at the next CFL dyno shoot out. How far off are you from pulling the trigger on the Nismo headers and the cats?

With any luck, Friday the 25th we'll all be heading to Lokey to have our fun toys installed! Give me a call and we'll see what we can work out.

 

That's funny when I talked to Doug he said the Crawford headers are not loud. Can someone confirm? sound clip maybe.

 

Yes Doug also told me his headers don't add any more noise. (paraphrased) That's why
I asked. A member in the coupe forum just posted he is going to install Crawford
headers, so hopefully he will give a review soon.

 

Not if I beat him to it.... MUAWHAAAAA

 

Ha ha, silly me. Replying to a member about another member that turns out to be same member. Huh? What?

Yea, get going on the installs, reviews and dyno number!!