My current setup:

07' G35 Coupe
Injen CAI
5/16'' isothermal plenum spacer
Iridium plugs
M2 headers
M2 Cat back system
Megan racing resonated test pipes

I received all these exhaust parts from Marinelli Auto sports for a good price. Nothing against him. Boxes were badly damaged, product was not. Installation took a long time, not fun. Approximately 8 hours later I dropped the car and went to back out. The steering shaft was hitting the left header. After speaking with M2, they basically acknowledged that it was out of spec and there was nothing they would do about it. I'm sure it wasn't a right hand drive header, just a worthless company trying to make a quick buck by selling cheap junk and offering no real help. After removal and some alterations (aka shortening the width of the pipe touching the shaft) and grinding off the exposed long end of the steering knuckle bolt, it finally worked. Fitment of the pipes was terrible, not all bolt holes of headers lined up, needed drilling out. Bolt holes of connections between pipes way off, right tip doesn't line up with rear fender, it's actually melting the plastic because it's too close.

I started it up and this was the worst sound I have ever heard in my life.

Terrible drone, too loud to listen to the radio, bad sound, very raspy. Worst possible noise this beautiful car could make. I missed the original sound instantly.

After this horrible disappointing I put the Cats back in to see if this would quite the drone. Nope, still sounds terrible. Don't even want to drive it.


1. Please don't buy anything from M2. This is a waste of money. I really hope that high end stuff actually sounds better.

2. If someone could give me some direction now. Maybe I should Go back to stock with only m2 headers? Maybe get higher quality mufflers? Wrap? I don't even want to drive it this way.

 

i always say to myself even it sounds cheap .... probably something seriously wrong with it design wise and fail eventually and stick to spending more but doing it right the first time. sell all that junk and either go back to OEM or invest in an Motordyne/Stillen/HKS... only true exhausts worth the money IMO

i would say keep the headers its a pain in the a$$ taking out and installing headers and I'm assuming you don't want to waste the huge cost of installation twice... alot of people on the forums don't even justify buying headers in the first place due to the minimal gains our cars see from it so keep it on.

Do you have the v1 or v2 resonated test pipes ? I hear the v1's are seriously flawed and don't last long due to major design flaws no 02 bung, leaking, poor quality. The v2's fixes all that and are much better

But personally i would have gone with either Fast Intentions Resonated Test Pipes OR Motordynes ART Pipes. But that's just me.

 

should have got an FI or MD in the first place... ive built a lot of cars and learned from experience. you get what you pay for. you want a car that sounds good... get a motordyne tdx2. its the best sounding exhaust ive ever heard on a v6. when i used to daily drive my cobra with bbk long tube headers, off-road h-pipe, and flowmaster catback, it was the best sounding mustang in town. i am really picky on exhaust parts. the tdx2 is top notch. i get a lot of compliments on it!

 

I too can vouch for the TDX2, i'm running it with ART pipes and it sounds absolutely ferocious. I would never put cheap/knock off parts on my car. Even though this is the first car I've seriously modded, I have put nothing but top notch quality parts on my car. Sure, I could of already had every single mod on my wish list if I had bought cheap parts. But that defeats the purpose of owning a Infiniti and pride in a well built car. Bottom line, I hope you learned a lesson. You truly get what you pay for, Do it once.. Do it right. Best of luck getting things sorted out.

-Sean

P.s. I've had bad experiences with Marinellis parts. I suggest using other vendors like B2AutoDesigns.

 

Thanks, yes I did learn something. Now i'm out a bunch of money and very pissed. Going back to stock and keeping the headers seems like my best choice for now. Is there any reason why just replacing the mufflers wouldn't make it sound better? And leaving the xpipe and stock test pipes? I don't know what version the test pipes are. Probably the old ones. Any way to find out by looking at them?

The worst thing is that nobody on this forum had the ***** to post a bad review, maybe I didn't look hard enough but people should know that this stuff is junk.