Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers review +FULL BOLT ON dyno (G3 FI CB & FI LTH)
 

Well it has been a while, and although everybody hates me on this board, I thought I'd at least post this, mainly because I don't care what yall think about me :)
Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers Review:
Pictures first:
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0709.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0710.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0722.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0727.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0726.jpg



Appearance 10/10
My friend who basically did all the hard stuff for the install wouldn't stop complimenting the welds and how well the ports were... ported? Anyway it was definitely great work. The only thing I could compare them to was my Toda Race Headers for my RSX which cost an arm and a leg and the quality was just as good if not better.

Fitment 10/10
No issues at all. None!

Sound 8/10
Ok I need to elaborate here. There are THREE (3) categories here that I rated as a whole.

First of all, the sound of the FI cat back with the FI LTH is much louder above 3000 rpms and at a cold start. Below 3000rpms and at a warm idle I can't really tell much of a difference from the stock headers + FI cat back. Above however is much louder and much higher pitched. For normal driving I don't think it's too much louder.
Second, the RASP. Its there, it can be heard outside of the car. It is NOT noticeable inside the car HOWEVER, when going through some areas with high walls on both sides of the car it is noticable inside the car with the windows down. Is it bad? No. Is it there? Yes. If you have never had a race header or a cat deleted exhaust, then you need to be expecting some rasp. I have yet to see a race header than doesn't have some rasp. I haven't really heard it from outside the vehicle but I will hopefully get videos up soon
Third, the famous "VQ Hiss". Yeah, its loud. I only hear it when going above 3000rpms and letting off the throttle and when throwing the car into neutral above 2500rpms. It kind of sounds like a turbine unspooling at times. EDIT Okay, after the 150 miles, the hiss is there and you can't escape it. There is no other way to describe it than what I first posted. People look at the car scratching their heads it is kind of funny actually!

Performance 9/10
EDIT Okay so after about 150 miles of normal driving I decided to start pushing the car. I can definitely FEEL the torque in every gear. When I look at the RPM gauge however it seems like its still pulling the same at higher speeds. What I mean by this is usually when I go from 60-100 in 3rd gear it takes about 5 seconds. Well it still feels like 5 seconds but I can feel it pulling much harder. It seems the claims that Fast Intentions has made are true. Especially in 1st and 2nd gear. The car struggles to get grip when going from 0-100% throttle in 1st gear above 4000rpm and it pulls HARD. In 2nd gear you can kick the rear end out around corners easily at 3000rpms and before I couldn't do under 4500. Also I want to add that crusing gas mileage seems to ahev improved. I can cruise at 80mph with MUCH less throttle input than before and when the freeway becomes inclined it also takes less throttle to stay at 80mph going up. I am solely gauging this by the Current Gas Mileage gauge that the car has. The city mpg seems the same.

I want to add that the OEM Header quality is complete SH*T!!! At the time I didn't take pictures, but the stock o2 sensors' thread MELTED (yes MELTED!!!!) inside of the stock header!!!! BOTH SIDES! I nearly shat myself when I saw this. Luckily my friend is very veyr experienced and he filed new threading. I didn't take pictures of the dam sensors but I can take more pictures tomorrow of the threading on the stock header to show you all of the nerve wrecking damage. My buddy thinks it happened because the stock o2 sensor is too close to the engine. Also the ports of the headers are SH*t!!! here are crappy pics to show you.
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0720.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0715.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/v...r/CIMG0719.jpg

nice read, thanks for the review

sounds like another satisfied FI user

nice post. thanks

good initial review :tup:

What size resonators do you have?
Good review. :tup:

Man those look so nice. Great Review.

good stuff man. does this mean all of our o2 sensors are jacked up?

With the way the cAr is designed there is a good 40 percent chance atleast one of your o2 sensors are jacked up. One of mine was and i had less than 10k miles on the car at the time. Percentage will obviously go up with more miles how much? Who knows. You shouldn't be getting any rasp out the back of the exhaust if you have resonators. The hiss and rasp that you mostly hear is when the exhaust gases collide in the xpipe it will cause a rasp/hissing sound even at wot. Unavoidable the exhaust is just too free flowing.

Quick noob question... Should one get LTH first before getting CBE or does it not matter which one gets installed first?

^ get them at the same time FTW

Congratulation on the install.

Was your car tuned before you install the headers?

To see the most gains youll probably want to upgrade your exhaust from back to front meaning Catback first and then LTH. If you get the LTH you probably wont see much gains because the stock exhaust is so restrictive.

Most of the restriction is in the Cats, you will see more gains with those being replaced first.

Thanks.

RASP... AND HISS!?! SIGN ME UP!

...not

Looking forward to dyno results -- no baseline????

Just to be clear, LTH's will possibly have some low end losses and make most of the gains up top...

EDIT: No, no -- other way round -- duh... :icon14:

Incorrect, these LTH have gains on the bottom and throughout the powerband and a minor loss up top.

Theres no rasp.. You hear the hissing through the exhaust because of all the flow.. But theres no rasp at all out the back through the mufflers just music.. unless ofcourse he has no resonators...

..but doesn't the LTH remove the cats?

Duh, yes of course that makes sense -- long runners move peak torque downwards in RPM range (short runners generlaly mean more power up top) -- I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that ... had it backwards (have another beer, Jordo) :icon14:

Thats still not entirely correct.. the long tubes increased torque for the Z accross the entire rpm range vs any of the shorties available for the z. And power has increased over the entire rpm range it depends on the exhaust your running.

Thats the general rule of thumb as far as relative runner length for any combustion engine (which I wrote totally ***-backwards)... you can develop a stepped design that will widen the powerband, which may be the case here, but if the power gains move in the opposite direction then VVEL tuning is likely to blame.

In general, longer runners = peak torque moves down; shorter runners = peak torque moves up. Pipe diameter will fix total possible peak power.

Individual results may vary :icon17:

Improved flow should (overall) move peak torque upwards too as you tend to see peak cylinder filling (and therefore empyting) at higher RPM's, depending on head design and displacement, that is...

Ok I updated the first post. I have the 18'' resonators. I have some bad news unfortunately. I was pulled over by one of the wonderfull chula vista police officers. I wasn't speeding, I wasn't doing any kind of aggressive driving, no peeling out, no reving my engine. I was sitting at a stop light! The officer was in the lane to my right and apparently his driver window was right near my rear bumper. I knew he was there. I even started in 2nd gear instead of 1st to stay at low rpms to be cautious. As soon as the light turned green, I slow rolled and then I saw him dart behind me so I just went into the right lane stopped lol The reason he pulled me over was because he claimed he could smell the fumes through his cracked window. He said it smelled like a monster truck event. (wtf kind of comparison is that?) I knew the fumes were bad but I didn't think they were THAT bad. Anyway he asked me what mods I had. I told him pretty much everything, opened the hood for him, I told him I didn't have cats when he asked me. I'm not going to lie to him because I can get in even more trouble for being a leo myself at my job. So he gave me a fix-it ticket for a smog test but was nice enough to not give me anything else (meaning referee). So basically I have to uninstall them to go to a smog test station then go back to the Chu PD office and get it signed and probably pay $25. GOD I have bad luck with this car!! I am not sure if I want to put them back on at this point after the whole thing with the oil cooler and now this. Man my luck but Chula Vista PD officers have a bad rep for doing everything but fight crime anyway. I'll get an update tomorrow hopefully after we re-intall the stock headers and I can hopfully get it to a place in time. BUT I did update the review :tup:

well..sucks my friend....my buddy cough cough has a smog smog shop cough cough ugh he signed mine of when I had my b22 boosted. Damn the police

That sucks.. Go to jamaicas buddys shop lol. Out of all my cars I've never had a problem with any cops at idle you can barely smell any exhaust fumes. Even from behind the car with minimal throttle you can't smell anything. The thing is hen you first put exhaust parts on the car it will smell funky for a couple days until the oils burn off the exhaust. That may of been what he smelled to be honest.

Daishi - Where in NJ are you? I might be interested in meeting up to hear that beast.

Colts neck. Central nj

Thanks for posting, sucks about the police... Also am i blind? i didnt see anything having to do with a dyno..

Thanks for the review Tard. You should throw up some sound clips.

Wait... so now we have Rasp, Hiss, and horrible fumes that are bad enough that cars next to you can smell it. All for a couple of HP... literally, a couple of HP

:wtf:
The rasp comes with certain combination of exhaust (even certain HFC+exhaust have produced rasp), the hiss is on almost all setups I have heard with a 370z with aftermarket exhaust setups, and the smell goes away after awhile (just need to break it in).

Look I'm aware of what causes what... I had the HFC / Catback set up and I had hiss and I put the stock cats back on because I couldn't deal with the sound. It just seems odd to me that people would put up with so much for a couple of horsepower that you honestly can't even feel.

*Shrugs* To each his own I suppose.

I had the hiss even with the stock headers and FI cat back. Its just the way the VQ engines are, I knew it before I bought the car. If you have an aftermarket exhaust you have the hiss, you just have never stood behind your car when you coast at around 2000-3000rpms The rasp, well I don't know what to tell you. Its not bad but it IS there. It doesn't sound like a 4 banger but I have heard corvettes with rasp once they add Kooks or LG headers. It just something you need to decide if you can live with or not. And once they unlock the VVEL the headers will be MUCH MUCH more usefull than you can imagine. The fumes I am not sure what could be the cause of it. It could be the o2 censors for all know, they were pretty messed up. But as Dreamer said, it goes away once the car adjusts but then again, with no cats it will always be there. It seems a lot of members on here don't understand that when you add LTH's or even just a straight pipe, your car changes dramatically. I always laugh when people install LTH's on their car then uninstall them because it is too loud. You need to understand what you are doing to your car before you do it.

Anyway the stock o2 sensors are crap. I am just going to take it to a stealership and let them have at it. I got a quote for $1100 for the reinstallation and $280 for each o2 sensor. I think a Honda FCX Clarity is more mod friendly than this car lol

I happen to like the sound of both. I want it to sound like a race car, not a Lincoln Continental :gtfo2:;)

Ok it's a done deal. My car is at the stealership getting the swap done. Also keep in mind tht when you guys install these be mindfull of the steering linkage position. There was about a centimeter of play in the steering wheel that i noticed on the way there.

My Fast Long Tube Headers are up for sale as soon as everything is done PM me if you are interested.

The for sale thread is up.

http://www.the370z.com/parts-sale-pr...tml#post593002

Good talking with you today. I understand and agree as to why you shouldn't put these back on your car. You do not need to give the Southern California law enforcement any more ammunition against you. After all, you already own a red sports car. That in itself is like having 2 strikes!

Thanks, Tony

HAHA yes that is true! It sucks because I can get in trouble for having it happen again from my employer :( But I really appreciate your service with that.

negative, the smell does not go away, I'm running test pipes for about 4 months, and the smell is still there, that's one thing i'm scared of when i'm next to a cop, i pray that they have their windows up.