Cheap material..? Since when is stainless steel cheap... Damn, someone better call Mercedes, Ferrari and Porsche and tell them stainless steel is cheap and not good...

Phil Petracca

 

Do you already have an aftermarket intake? I don't think you mentioned that anywhere. Intakes and exhausts tend to compliment each other well (ever heard the saying "more air in + more air out = more horsepower?"). That should recover the torque you lost; at least it did with my old car. I didn't get much improvement from just a [custom] catback exhaust, but I definitely noticed more off-the-line torque just from going from the stock airbox to a conical aftermarket air filter. I'm sure a full cold air intake would have made an even bigger improvement.

2004 6MT (Silver/Willow), premium & aero packages

My old ride (I still miss her; put a lot of pride and joy into it): http://www.n-body.net/registry/john95ga/

 

Like any kind of metal there are various grades of stainless steel. This is another area in which an automotive enthusiast must be aware when purchasing such a system.

Some auto manufactures, in an effort to meet government regulations requiring longer warranties, are using a lower grade of stainless steel to lengthen the life of their exhaust systems vs the more common aluminized systems. Many of these systems are made from steel using only 7-8 percent chromium additive. This is referred to as 409 grade stainless. Although this is an excellent material, its characteristic properties allow it to last approximately 5-6 years.

Some aftermarket manufactures use a higher quality stainless steel, referred to as 304 grade stainless. This steel has a higher percentage of chromium, 18 percent, but also includes 8-9 percent nickle. The higher concentration of chromium and the addition of nickle dramatically increases the steel’s life and luster. The 304 stainless steel is air-craft quality and will resist corrosion and last a lifetime.

I'm happy to say, Borla uses 304 stanless steel, so no its not cheap stuff, but due to their lack of attention to detail (not polish, spoty welds) and use of over the counter type mounting hardware, it just takes away from the systems "eye candy" apeal.

As for the question regrading the "electric supercharger" this has been around for a while. Earlier models were design to simply blow in cold dense air from outside the engine bay into the intake, but newer and more high speed version have begun to pop up and claims of up to a full PSI of boost has been recorded. That's something that I still feels needs to be seen first hand before I'll but into it, but it does have potential. It'll never give you the seat in the pants performance a real supercharger will, but I'm sure for the value, its something worth looking into.



"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a *****, but only enough blood to run one at a time."

 

Here are the results from the dyno shoot out compairing exhausts, Borla true dual, Nismo, Stillen true dual and the Injen (pretty sure true dual).

Borla (car 2) = 8.2 Hp - 2.7 ft/lbs torque (peak values)
HP increase from 5500 rpm to 6500 rpm range. Lost HP & torque below 1800 rpm. 60mm pipe. Weighs 52lbs.

5Zigen (car 2) = (-3.4) Hp - .02 ft/lbs torque (peak values) Lost Hp, no real torque gain. Most expensive. Loudest. 58mm pipe. Lightest @ 25lbs.

Injen (car 1) = 7.6 Hp - 5.1 ft/lbs torque (peak values)
Small torque loss at 2800 rpm. Torque gain starts at 3300 rpm. Small Hp increase starts at 3300 rpm, maxing out from 5800 rpm to redline. Major loss in Hp and torque below 2200 rpm. 49lbs.

Nismo (car 1) = 6.3 Hp - 4.5 ft/lbs torque (peak values)
Developed torque and Hp over wide rpm range. Torque increase starting at 3000 rpm. Most HP increase from 4800 rpm to redline. No power losses below 1800 rpm. 54lbs.

Stillen (car 1) = 8.1 Hp - 7.3 ft/lbs torque (peak values)
Hp and torque increase starting around 3000 rpm to redline. Lost a little Hp & torque below 1800 rpm. 60mm pipe. 74lbs - 10 lbs heavier than the stock system.

"All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke

G35 6mt

 

Gsedan35... thx for posting the results... you confirmed my memory that the "true duals" (if you don't consider the Borla a true dual) do indeed lose HP/torque in the lower end... also its good to have a comparison for others to see which is best.

 

Excellent Post Gsedan35!

Real world results with real world systems! Very informative! As I suspected, with the Borla, you really need to crank that bad boy to generate those ponies (near redline), and it pretty much confirms the fact that so many Borla owners have stated they felt a loss of low end power.



"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a *****, but only enough blood to run one at a time."

 

The question remains. How do I get back the low end hp and torque back while still sticking with the Borla? I'm assuming that a CAI might be a good step in the right direction. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that certain CAIs did not do well with certain exhaussts. Any recommendations on something the will marry up well with the Borla? Headers as well maybe the Fujitsubo headers?

 

Honestly the info I posted is the work of someone else, I did a search on "shootout" to narrow the search field for the exhaust shootout that was done some time ago. In one of the threads I found a post that had the above info, I cut and pasted it. Somewhere I have a pic of the dyno plots, can't find it though.

I have my own custom true dual system, haven't dyno'd it yet, but I don't sense a reduction in low end, just a much harder mid range and top end push.

"All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke

G35 6mt

 

Gsedan.. i know the shootout was someone else's...as I mentioned in my earlier post it was SportZ's exhaust shootout (done with StrictlyZ (this site's sponsor)). In any case, you did the search for the results so that more than merits some recognition IMO. Again, thanks for helping out the community as well as confirming my previous post...

To get back on topic, its hard to increase HP/torque in the lower end. CAIs tend to help the upper end as well as headers. However, they can indeed help in the lower RPM range but not as much as top-end. If you want a CAI, I would recommend the Injen (RD1992 as the older version has stalling problems on 6mts[ie. don't get RD1990 if you have 6mt) as some independent dyno by a forum member on my350z showed Injen gaining the most when compared to the stock and AEM (Nismo is said to be a rebadged AEM). However, I think gains from CAIs are minimal and you should rather save the money towards headers and high flow cat (or if you don't care about the smell\sound\passing SMOG check test pipes combo). In the headers department, I would take a look at the Nismo's as well as Crawford's (Crawfords are said to gain more over the entire RPM band but they are not cheap at 1200). In the high flow cats department, I hear the RT cats are really good but they may not pass visual SMOG checks, so you may alternately look at the kinetix racing ones as they look more OEM-ish so they MIGHT pass visuals (maybe not as much gains as the RT's though). If, you plan to run test pipes, you may want to look at the Xerd headers (long-tube) that elimantes the cats. If you plan to buy headers and test pipes seperately, any test pipe is pretty decent and will net similar gains (some test pipe companies are kinetix [which has a resonator added version for quieter sound], and helix, among others) Hope this helps....

 

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

The borla, even though they call it the "True Dual" system is in a sense, not a dual system at all. It uses a two into one muffler, with dual outlet design. Compared to that of Stillens and Injen's, who use a seperate can for each bank of the system. Now I could be wrong, and that would be if Borla has split the internals of their muffler for each side of the block, but taking into consideration its small size and low profile, I highly doub't that's the case. If anyone could find that out, that would be great!

<hr></blockquote>

David Borla has stated on the MY350Z forum that they're separate chambers. Or at least that's the impression I got, because he said that two ping pong ***** dropped down the tubes would never be able to hit each other. Supposedly, having one big case like that also saves weight and improves reasonance. It *is* lighter than the competition, so maybe there's something to that.

I can only speak for myself, but my 1/4 mile times improved an average of .25 seconds over my best pre-Borla time, although I should add that there were 1500 extra miles of break-in between the two times that probably had an impact. Also, at the risk of perpetuating a myth, I've heard that the AT gets much better results from the exhaust than the MT, because it was designed on an AT 350Z Touring edition. Most of the people with good dynos had ATs, whereas the very low dynos were all MTs. I don't know why that would make a difference, maybe taking your foot off the gas between shifts creates some sort of backpressure problem that doesn't exist on an AT, but like I said, this is based on circumstantial evidence. All I can say for sure is that my Borla-equipped AT is more powerful than it used to be, because I can no longer do a 1-2 tiptronic shift at 6000 rpms under WOT without bouncing off the rev limiter first. When stock it shifts just before redline.

-Jack
Obsidian '03 G35 Sports Coupe
Titanium '03 MX-5 Shinsen #532

 

Hey Ducatiguy and others - really a pleasure to read a forum where intelligent people say smart things. Ive always said that the exhaust system that guys are adding must compromise something else - no free lunch and basically you take from somewhere and add it somewhere else - the problem being that people always look at peak numbers never real world numbers - you only hit peak HP for a moment or two unless you are a race driver lapping at constant high rpm speeds - so in real world day to day living - spending money actually results in a loss of capability - nett effect a waste of money!!! - If you like the look get a fat over pipe (normally inversely proportional to your ___ size) otherwise save your money and enjoy driving the car the way the factory engineers designed it.

 

This is a great post. Really informative and it looks like the Nismo exhaust was best designed for this car (as that would be natural)... Decent on the weight, but the lack of performance loss anywhere in the powerband is key, especially for those that are not racing every second they are driving.... Great information guys.

Mods:
Aluminum racing pedals
JWT Pop Charger / Z-tube Combo

 

Picture of Borla True Dual Install:

Twilight Blue G35 Coupe 6MT
Premium - Nav - Aero - Trunk Mat
Injen CAI

 

Lets Try Again:

Twilight Blue G35 Coupe 6MT
Premium - Nav - Aero - Trunk Mat
Injen CAI

184790-DSC0018944.jpg

 

2

Twilight Blue G35 Coupe 6MT
Premium - Nav - Aero - Trunk Mat
Injen CAI

184791-DSC00190454.jpg