Well I'm really getting anxious to put an exhaust on my Z.. the engine is way too quiet! All the exhaust that i've seen that i liked have been about $1200 (the Amuse & Power Enterprises) a family freind works at HKS and i know theyre developing one right now too.. but im wondering if all the dual exhausts coming out for the Z are going to be $1000+.. if so, which it seems like right now, i was thinking of buying 2 Apex'i universal dual tip exhausts and making a custom one using 3" piping.. anyone have any opinions? i know it will look good, probably sound a lot better too.. and cost less for sure! i was looking at the 5 Zigen Z and they did a similar setup to what i want to do.. universal fireball mufflers..

Edit: I forgot to mention that gaining HP is another KEY issue here!

 

I had some custom stuff done and it sounds awesome and sotp power gains were very noticable. It flat out screams at high rpm's.

I am still curiuos about the Y-Pipe, it looks like a pretty decent setup to me. Not sure whether to touch that or not yet.

I am also curiuos about what the flow is on the cats compared to say, RT or Car Sound Cats.

I know with the LS1 F-Bods cats were already "hi flow" cats and minimal gains were had if any at all unless you removed them completly which is a huge fine and smells like crap at idle.

 

i'm pretty sure theres a lot of power to be had in that y-pipe.. that's why that Amuse system gains so much hp..

 

If you're going to change the diameter of the exhaust-- be wary. Some changes to a larger diameter CAN produce a loss of torque-- I am not certain if this is the case with the Z, but I would research this if it were my car. This is why companies take time to come out with complete tuned exhaust kits. They invest time/energy/research to produce a product that functions well on many levels: HP, torque, appearance, sound. Many kits are well worth the $$$
ZZ

 

max hax- did you get your exhaust dyno'd? and do you have any sound clips?

 

And I will Dyno in January after pay day to see where I am at.

 

Have you thought about just having the pre-silencer removed? It's a hell of a lot cheaper than a whole new exhaust, and it really does the trick on the sound. If you're not familiar, just search for "silencer" on this board, and also make sure you see this:

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....threadid=15027

 

I'm not really sure you'll need 3" pipes for dual exhaust. Everything isn't that simple, and bigger not always better. You need a balance between pipes being big enough to let hot gases flow trhough freely, and small enough to not let them over expand, cool down, slow down and create lots of back pressure. I'm in development of true dual, you can search my name to see my previous post about exhaust.

 

i was looking at the amuse y-pipe and i noticed that the two pipes coming off the headers are smaller and lead into a pipe that goes into the exhaust itself that are larger.. im sure this is for the reasons you mentioned.. after that point i'd probably go 3" after that.. possibly w/ dual canister style mufflers rather than an after market version of the stock muffler

 

why 3"? thats too big a diameter for n/a setup AND dual exhaust. not to mention its gonna be pretty loud. even these tt kits coming out dont need 3" i dont think (depending on turbo size of course).

 

i had a 98 prelude turbo and i used a custom 3" tanabe rx7 turbo exhaust.. turbo's use bigger piping than an NA application but i was thinking a 3" on the Z due to the 3.5L motor.. the prelude had a 2.2L engine (while the prelude was NA it had a Greddy PE on it which had 2.5" piping)

im still not completely sure which setup im going to go with.. but with the limited availability of aftermarket exhaust systems, a custom setup is very tempting..

 

Getting a large diameter will result in lowend power loss, but in the high end the benefits will outweigh the loss, unless you baby the car then an exhaust is a waste of money. ALso, free-flow mufflers like the Apex'i N1 are really loud, even at around 2k rpm, it's loud, be aware of that.

 

That's is exactly why I'm waiting a year or so till all the exhaust manufactures come out with Z specific 50-state-legal exhaust systems. Besides, the stock exhaust doesn't sound that bad for now.

 

go custom

i went custom 3" on my turbo teg, and you get to choose the muffler and how many resonators to put inline; puts u in control of the sound a little. just redoing my dp and exhaust gave me 20whp and 10wtq ....good stuff