I got the Strup Headers and AAM test pipes installed yesterday ~ everything went fairly smoothly and was much faster than I had thought! I decided to do this install as a ‘group install day’…we ended up having 5 guys total (some ppl with tons of install experience and some with a little)

Time: started at 7am, finished and test drove car by 4pm. We took a few breaks, ate lunch and also had to make a few run to get some bolts and coolant, so the total work time was around 5hrs.

notes:
-All of the OE stuff came out fairly easily; we removed the following pieces: bottom plastic under tray, intake, strut bar, drained radiator fluid, coolant hard pipe that runs on passenger side of engine, OE cats, unbolted the steering shaft, header heat shields (driver's side couldn't be removed until header was removed)and then the OE headers. (The header nuts were a bit of a pain to remove – we had good enough access to all of them, but some of them took awhile to thread out…2 of them had the bolts come out with the nuts, but that wasn’t a problem
-we re-used all of the Exhaust gaskets and at this point, there’s no exhaust leaks that I can hear.
-We spent some extra time on cleaning out the Jet-Hot coating from the O2 sensor bung on the headers…we used one of the non-foulers to clean and ‘re-tap’ the threads.
-the Strup headers went in without issue, perfect fitment! We used the supplied nuts from Strup, and all of those fit well (some headers have been known to have clearance issues with the nut’s side not clearing welding or piping portions of the headers). A few of the nuts were a bit harder to gain access to b/c of the piping differences from the OE header, but they all went on and we could torque them all down easily.
-I had to pick up some bolts…forgot that all of the bolts from the headers to TP and TP to Y-pipe were taken out (they’re attached to either the OE header or cats).
-The AAM test pipes went on next (with the non-foulers attached) without a problem, it’s a little bit harder to get the bolts started b/c you have to use bolts/washer/nuts (the OE exhaust has the bolts welded onto the header/Cats), but since the TP’s are sooooo much lighter than the cats, it’s not much of a problem. Fitment was great - bolted right onto the header and then to the Y-pipe.

Start-up: the engine started w/out issue. There was a good amount of smoke coming out of the exhaust, but that was expected b/c of residual grease that’s put on the new exhaust parts.

Sound: At idle, it didn’t sound too much different (The cats that I had been using were already gutted, so I didn’t expect there to be much difference). When reving it up, there’s a slight vibration at 3K rpms…I’ll have to get back under the car and find out what’s causing it.) A WOT, it’s a bit louder, but not much. I like the sound, but don’t care either way b/c I’ll be getting my AAM 3” single TI exhaust w/ Y-pipe very soon (currently, y-pipe and back is completely OE).

And now some pics:

Headers:




TPs:



clearly labled Driver/Passenger TP's

Even my dog found them interesting...


OE headers:





Here's a close shot of the tail end of the OE headers; there's a type of inner piping and steel wool lining


Install pics:
driver's side

passenger side


didn't take too many pics during the install...there's lot of other write ups with pics and I didn't see anything that was worth stoping the flow of work for.

This was not as bad as I thought it was going to be and IMO is worth to do (saves $ and gain in expeirence)

Dyno?: I'll be getting a dyno after I do all of my installs, so I won't have any data on the differences that this 2 mods made by themselves...I wouldn't care too much at this point anyways b/c after I'm all done, I'll be getting AAM's reflash to maximize the HP/TQ gains from everything.

-Peter


*here's a vid of it (just edited it - 1st peice is windows up in 2nd gear, 2nd part is windows down in 2nd gear...this was on my way to work sunday morning - too dark to seem much)

 

looks good


funny lookin dog though LOL

j/k

 

just don't let me wife hear you saying that - sometimes I think she loves that dog as much as me

 

Thanks for taking the time to post photos. Always appreciated.

 

Nice job on the install...

 

Nice job...exhaust next...then UTEC

 

close , but it's exhuast and then a Reflash (AAM)

 

LOL... Looks like your dog wants to be an O2 sensor. I like that pic.

Looking forward to seeing what your Z can do once you've got the exhaust and the tune.

 

That comment made me bust out laughing!!

 

quick update: everything is still running great ~ I love the sound at start-up, it's much deeper than stock.

-engine temps feel less than before.
-car seems to pull harder...I never reset the ECU, so maybe it's taken the past week for it to adjust.

Still happy with the purchase and think header installations are MUCH easier than what is posted - it does take time, but it's not too technical and Strup's fitment was great.

-Peter

 

I ordered the strup headers today as well. Tuning factory gave me a good deal. Probably gonna send them to jet hot also.

 

nice write-up and pics. Glad to hear you're enjoying them. If anyone is looking for a great deal on these headers before the end of the year and get free shipping too, we have them in stock and ready to go.

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread.php?t=209139

 

Hey how much is it to JET coat headers? And also I just picked up the Top speed headers which look to be the same as the strups so think I could expect similar power gains?

 

jet-hot will proably run you more then the headers

about $240 for standard, I got extreme sterling it cost $270

 

Awesome setup. I really enjoy reading your write-ups, they are cool.

 

Looks like your dog is trying to blaze it up.

 

I think I paid around $240 for the Jet Hot 2000 ceramic coating - there was a my350z special going on awhile ago, I mentioned that and they still gave me the discount.

*After having these haeders on for awhile, the engine temps have been great...I never took any temperatures readings before, but it almost *feels* cooler in the engine bay now. No issues what so ever on melted plastic/wiring...the Strup headers had good clearance.

-Peter

PS - I just got my reflahsed AAM ECU back in the mail tonight...heading to the dyno tomorrow. I'll post it in the tuning section, but am excited to see the difference. (I'll have before/after dynos to show what the gains are)

 

Now that you had the headers on for a while, would you say that they made a decent increase in power? Can you feel the difference in the seat of your pants?

 

I jacked my car up today to install mine. It's too cold to use ramps and I couldn't jack it up high enough in the garage. Gonna have to pay someone to do it for me or find someone willing to let me use a lift. The driver side is gonna be a pain.

 

I'm really bad at saying if it *feels* faster or not (I always doubt when people say they feel a difference...usualy if it sounds faster, ppl will think it's fatser.) My latest dyno was at 260wHP, 250TQ, but that's with the AAM flash and UR flywheel/clutch. In all, I love the general feel of the car, it's very responsive and the power is adicting! (the power gain was through the whole RPM range, which makes a huge difference)


It took me almost 30 minutes to jack up the car when I did mine...I would jack up each side to the lowest jack-stand setting, then go back around and keep incrimentally raising the car up - by the end, I could eaisly fit under the car; but I found that a large portion of the work was done from above.

good luck!

-Peter