Thanks! Looks like I will get those instead. Do the come with the hanger hooks?

 

Just to clarify, I'm talking about the straight test pipes by Helix. I bought those back in 2004. They do not have any hanger hooks, nor did the original OEM cats. The Helix pipes weighed only about 5 lbs each.

 

I am not surprised. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Berk is a bad company. It's just that aftermarket companies can go only so far in terms of quality. I love my Berks, I think they sound perfect with my exhaust.

Brian is a nice guy man. The other day he pm'd me out of no where asking me if I needed muffler packing material to stuff in my O2 bungs (to help prevent future CEL's). I told him no thanks because I have never gotten a CEL (except this one time when I was driving pretty hard on cold cats, but I reset it and it never came back on).

Moral of the story is to not have such high expectations from aftermarket companies. Nothing beats OEM quality.

 

Brian is a great guy... im 110% certain he'll take care of you as soon as you get a hold of him... i tried to email him about a month ago too and no response

try PM..

 

I would try calling them.

I also had the same thing happen only it was twice.

One set failed in June of 08 while on track, Berk replaced them free of charge thinking it was a fluke.

Then in November the same thing happened, again while on track. I would notice it because the metallic element would break apart and clog my Nismo exhaust causing exteme HP loss. I was relieved to find out it was only a cat though.

Berk again offered to replace them, but I instead went with their test pipes. No issues with the TP.

Berk has been great and I don't blame them, I believe they purchase the metallic cats from a 3rd party and then weld everyhting together.


For the street I seriously doubt anyone would have any issues, but the high heat of tracking seems to effect the elements and break them up.

 

But why needs to contact berk? I thought warranty is one year.

 

well ill chime in, but let me say berk has been great to talk to, they have so far been very helpful and are warrantying both cats with no problem or questions asked have even called me to let me know how things are coming and when ill be shipped out and what not...I am running a vortech kit but i am tuned and my a/f is dead on 11.8 at most wot at redline, has never misfired, this sort of thing just happens, and im hoping i just got a bad batch, i figure they are warrantied so ill give them another shot and if it happens again swap them under warranty for their test pipes which they agreed to do..This is after 1,200 miles of use driver side shakes around inside the actual cat where it is starting to break and the pass. completely clogged, like u slammed a baseball bat in there, which is how i noticed from the exhaust note getting real quiet.. the pic looks a little blue from my flash, it is not blue or burnt or anything

 

berk has always answered for me when u call during their operating hours...they are pacific time i beleive it is so it may be different from u

 

That's exactly what I was thinking....
Same thing happened to mine (when I discovered it a month ago when I failed sniff test misearbly), while the only difference was that I never tracked my car during the time when the cats were on.

 

when there is warranty work that needs to be done u need to directly contact berk, not the vendor in which u bought it, just berk with a sales receipt

 

Well this sucks. It seems pretty clear to me that most any make of HFCs has isues with the cat elements becoming loose after 1+ year of use. I was going to get the Berks, but now I think I'll have to pass because Berk has the same problem as everyone else. The answer is pretty clear that these companies need to go with a better cat element that can handle the high exhaust temps of the VQ.

 

Quoted for the mother******* truth!

 

I don't know what "these companies" mean. Not all aftermarket HFCs has issue.

I have no problem with my UR metallic HFC. 1000 milies trip, around 30 milies on hard dyno pulls and DD. And I had UR ceramic HFC when i was N/A, got it for used, no problem untill the day i sold. Previous owner and i, we were very happy with it and hopefully new owner enjoy with it. ( he just received them this weekend)

I also never heard any issue with Fast Intention HFCs too.

 

I got an email from Bryan and Berk the night I started this thread. He explained some possible causes for the cats blowing out. Here's the relevant part of the email:
In all fairness, the right/passenger side bank could have blown out because I was having misfires on the right bank of my engine only, last October (although I think my cat was already blown out before then, but I don't know for sure so I can give the benefit of the doubt here). But the left/driver side did not have misfires, did not run out of tune (too rich or too lean). I just drive the car very hard on the track, but this is specifically what I asked before buying them -- if it would hold up to this.

Bryan at Berk offered to exchange my bad cats for a brand new set for a discounted price. But since he didn't say my cats could have been faulty, I don't see any reason why I would have any different results this time, so I do not plan to buy replacement cats. As I said above, I've ordered resonated test pipes.

I'm posting this in fairness to Berk, so others can decide what's best for their own situation.

For what it's worth, here is my own personal conclusion. Both CrawfordZ and Berk high-flow cats do add some horsepower. They are both probably fine for typical street use. But if you track your car regularly, I'm not convinced that these cats won't just continue to blow out. This doesn't mean the product is bad, it just means they shouldn't claim that the cats will last for track use if they have customers having these problems, which seems to be the case judging from responses in this thread and other threads.

I'll try to post another follow-up after I run my new test pipes at the track this weekend.

 

Subscribing for other manufacture suggestions - for track use HFCs.

so far, someone recommended...
UR metallic HFC
Fast Intention HFCs

 

WOW Mthreat, great write up!! Thanks for the info.

 

I've read of failures with most of all the makes. I guess there's a good reason why Nissan choose to go with such large cats and pre-cats (ie to shed heat better).

One thing I've considered for years now is doing the setup I had on my 96 Maxima. The Federal-spec Maximas had two large precats in the y-pipe and then between the y-pipe and midpipe was cat. We'd remove the OEM y-pipe and replace it with an aftermarket y-pipe with no cats, but leave the main cat in place. This setup netted a solid 12whp/15wtq. I don't see why the same setup couldn't be fabbed for the Z/G by simply cutting out a portion of the midpipe, installing a cat, adding few bungs for the 02 sensors, extending the wires, and adding TPs. I would think this would aleviate the cat meltdown problem.

 

The above quote should be a banner on this site. Seriously! Vendors and aftermarket companies can only do so much but when the product itself is not up to OEM quality standards then it is what it is!

 

I think some people have also blown out the OEM cats with heavy abuse too, but that isn't first-hand knowledge that I have.

I received the Kinetix test pipes and installed them tonight. I like them. Full review here: https://my350z.com/forum/na-builds/4...ml#post7242256

 

^^How do they sound compared with HFC's?