I listened to the sound clips on the fastintentions.com site a friend pointed me to and really liked the way they sounded but wasn't sure if I wanted to go Nismo or HKS as they were more "established" and had such a strong following in the 350 community. I finally went ahead and purchased the Fast Intentions Intimidator (stainless) 3 weeks ago during the group buy just to be a little different and the Nismo wasn't quite different enough for me from stock. The HKS I still love but the fast intentions exhaust just had something a little... extra I guess. Not sure how to explain it.

The exhaust arrived last Wednesday, right on the day Tony said it would arrive. Boxes looked good, no visible damage and everything was wrapped/taped in bubble wrap. A friend of mine and I were finally able to install it this weekend along with another lucky bystander who came over to change out his tranny fluid. It took about 4 hours, largely in part to some stubborn rubber hangers holding the stock muffler/tips and the fact we were working in a one car garage on jack stands which made manuvering under the car a little difficult. Installing the new exhaust was a breeze and was done in about 45 minutes once we had the stock exhaust off. Directions were thorough and complete with descriptions and pictures (note, you should really follow them. Seriously... we decided to take a "shortcut" with the install and ended up taking the X pipe out twice so we could fit the mufflers in correctly). We weighed the parts as we took them off and came up with a 2lb difference (as advertised).

I previously had stock exhaust with a pair of UTR resonated test pipes for 3-4 months and saw a definite improvement in performance with the test pipes (get rid of those cats!). My only complaints were a gurgling rasp going from 3000rpm down to 2000rpm when decelerating and a really loud drone between 3000rpm and 4000rpm under WOT (eventually the drone grew on me and used to punch WOT just to hear it from light to light).

The Intimidator coupled with the UTR pipes gives a really deep rumble at idle and up into the 2500rpm range. Once past 3000rpm you get the distinctive VQ35 drone with a nice growl mixed in - it sounds great. Past 4000rpm to redline you get a nice loud growl and really feel the car move. It feels like the car is getting a boost of hp/tq around 5000rpm but it could just be my imagination, no Dyno yet (maybe next week). Overall I think I feel a little increase across the board but will need a Dyno to tell me if I'm crazy or not. The rasp on deceleration is gone, which I expected from something I had read on another users post a while ago.

It's not quite broken in yet, but I love the exhaust. I had two people tell me the tips looked good in the Krogers parking lot when I went to pickup groceries and that they liked the stainless/polished look.

I took some pics of the install with my Treo but the pics suck... sorry.

Hopefully I'll get a vid up tonight when I get hold of a camera...

A big thanks to Rick and Tony at FI for the exhaust and for the helpers during the install process. Everything came together perfectly and can't think of anything negative to say about the process (except for the !@#ing rubber hanger it took us an hour to get off the stock exhaust).

 

Looks sweet bro. I can't wait to get mine!

 

love the looks on those exhaust..

 

Like to see some individual dyno numbers vs the hks..

 

Bump for Fast Intentions! Great company, sick exhaust. Ive got their HFC and love them. Im looking to replace my Injen exhaust with the FI Intimidator exhaust soon.

 

Shoulda done your differential since you were down there,

 

Looks good! I've been interested in this exhaust for a while. Any chance for some sound clips with the resonated test pipes?

 

-Double Post-

 

y is it so expensive

 

The sound clips will be coming - promise. I picked up a friend's vid cam the other day but it's been raining here for 2 days and haven't had a chance to get out and do it. Supposed to be 70 and sunny tomorrow so barring any work related crisis I'll take em at lunch tomorrow then post tomorrow night.

friz

 

After seeing fastintentions exhaust system do you think their test pipes would be any good? And on your polished set up is it polished all the way from front to back or just the rear mufflers and tips?

 

I'm sure the test pipes would be good. I've had nothing but good things to say about the exhaust and can't think the pipes would be any different. I've been tossing around the idea of replacing the UTR I've got now to get the "total feel" of the FI exhaust.

I went with the "stainless" version so only the muffler and tips are polished. It's a $200 difference roughly to get the whole thing polished but figured the $200 would be better spent on a 5/16" plenum spacer instead of polish nobody will ever see except for me and a mechanic. It's all up to personal preference...

 

All Fast Intention products are of great quality. Ive been to the shop and have seen how things work. My FI HFC are awesome. No problems with them at all. The FI test pipes Im sure are even better. Talk to Tony, he'll help re-assure you. Great customer service. Dont think twice, just order em!

 

bump, big props to FI. Love my Intimidator/cats

 

Have not had a chance to get the video done, but will do it shortly. The exhaust note has changed quite a bit now that its getting broken in. Same basic sound, just a little more "VQish" and not as deep at low RPM.

I did however, get a chance to swing by Forged Performance on the way home today and do a quick dyno pull. Was at 226.4 prior to the exhaust install and increased to 238.9 (no tq numbers, just hp). The 12 1/2 HP gain is probably 11HP gain from the exhaust (as advertised) and a 1 1/2 HP gain from the weather, was a nice 57 degrees tonight during the pull versus the last pull when it was at 2 in the afternoon in Atlanta summer heat.

friz

 

IIRC, people have posted similar overall numbers here with no changes to their car at all, just differences in the weather. You will lose a lot more than 1.5HP going from 95 to 57, FWIW. And your pulls were on two different dynos as well, correct?

 

frizille, Congrats on getting the exhaust installed, the car looks great.


Matt

 

A tip and a comment. Tip- Spray some Wet & Black, the stuff for making your tires shine, on the rubber mufler hangers and you will remove the muffler in less than five minutes with minimal swearing. Comment- if you think exhausts for our Zs are expensive, check out the price for an after market exhaust for a Harley! Two small flanges, 6-10 feet of tubing, a couple baffles, no mufflers, cost nearly as much and sometimes more than a Z exhaust.