STILLEN Longtube G3 Intakes. Review, Dyno and Impressions.
 

Alright, so I finally got a chance to test out the STILLEN G3's. First of all, thanks to STILLEN for letting me test out their products!! I have had nothing but good experiences so far with either Josh or Kyle. Second, a quick thanks to Jack @ HPLogic for hooking me up with a free install and some free runs so that everyone here could see the results. I specifically did this test for STILLEN and the members of the370z.com.

First of all, let me tell you guys that we did some baseline runs today. The result was 246HP. If you remember my last baseline on the same dyno was 256HP. The difference there is because I didn't have time to let the car cool down before today's baseline. The car was pretty hot (over 200) when we did this run. So you can pick either baseline. One is hot and the other is cold. Now that I think of it, it is actually a really good thing that I did that baseline today with the car under a lot of heat. You will see why soon.

Quality and Packaging:

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Everything was as expected; wrapped up individually and with plenty of protection. I expected nothing less.

Pipes were nice and shiny! Welds look great. Everything is top quality. Nice T clamps provided as well.

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And the whole kit was there. Filters look big and beefy. Hey, I'm half way to a FMIC!

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What More can I say about it. Its a lot of kit for a set of intakes that's for sure :) Instructions were nice and detailed too, or so I was told since I didn't get a chance to look them over ;)

Installation:

I've been hearing a lot of people whining about the installation and all I gotta say is that I don't understand why. Its a very complete intake system and it merits the effort. Taking the bumper apart took 10 minutes. There's screws underneath the chin spoiler and I suggest you get the car off the ground a bit to make things easier. Once the bumper is off, taking the stock intakes out takes maybe 5 minutes. A at this point its still clips and righty tighty lefty loosey guys...

The next thing we did was hook up the top portions that get rid of the corrugated part. Make sure you line up all the C clamps so you can get to the screw once they are on. I would advice you to leave them a little loose for the time being so that you can jiggle them around to line them up with the bottom sections. Don't forget to tighten and recheck everything when you are done.

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The next part was the dreaded cutting part. This part took us about 45 seconds per side. It is just common sense guys, get something sharp like a saw or if your lucky enough to do it at a shop, a nice air powered saw will do. Just slice about a half-inch radius half circle out of both sides of the hole. Not rocket science, just cut out chunks. This shouldn't take you more than a couple minutes per side. Don't be afraid of drilling or cutting, its usually much easier than it sounds. Just be careful not to cut any of the wires around the holes, that could be very bad.

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Run them through, Line them up. Push back the horn so that the filters fit.

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Once all is said and done... I didnt read the instructions, so this could all be upside down, but I dont think so :) It should look like this.

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And Outside

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OK Dyno Numbers.

Here is the Dyno chart of TODAYS BASELINE VS LAST WEEKS BASELINE VS AVERAGE RUN WITH THE G3's

http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k...331024x768.jpg

Yes, that says 278HP. That wasn't the highest run (282HP when COLD), but it was a good one. Average run was around 275WHP.

THAT IS A 20WHP GAIN OVER MY 256HP BASELINE. That means folks, that after doing INDEPENDENT testing of these intakes.. we are looking at real world 15-20WHP gains.

If you are confused right about now and wondering what the hell. Join the club.

Here is the BASELINE VS AVERAGE RUN GRAPH. Sorry about the numbers on the left got cut out, but the results were 246HP baseline VS 274HP with the intakes.

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And here is the AFR for that run of 274HP. Thats 11.8 where the mouse pointer is.

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All in all, as you will see in the videos. I was pretty much speechless. I have never seen a 20HP gain from intakes on an N/A car. I have a feeling we can easily push over 300WHP with STILLEN intakes and exhaust. That is the way I am going.

Videos

VIDEO OF RUN 2. RUN number 1 car made 282HP, because it was COLD versus warmed up in the rest of the runs. Make your own inference about that run versus the 256HP baseline which was also cool. Not going to get into the outliers, only focusing on the average ...Sorry about the sound and abrupt ending. The vibration from the sound the intakes make made the harddrive protection on my camera shut recording down.




Anyway, I have more to say, but I have to run right now. More will follow later. I hope you enjoyed it.


Here is one of the average runs:



Quick Dyno reading by Jack himself from HPLogic.

Finally......

Josh called me to tell me to tell you that you should go ahead and post what you have ;)

Seriously, I'm dying to hear more independent confirmations on the Gen3 intakes :)

lol... I told him go ahead.. :)

Did the AFR's change much?

Thanks for the edit :tiphat:

did you guys dyno with the bumper on? i am not sure if it will make a difference, but the location of the intakes appears to be more covered than what i was thinking... is it located where air doesn't naturally flow to because am thinking the foam and the chasis would block circulation?... i don't know if this even matters but im curious... the good thing about it though, it is that for sure water is not going to get to it... then again i am looking at it through pictures so am not quite sure...

Thanks RCZ! :tup:

Video/write-up/dyno = rep points!

Crazy results, thanks for doing this! :tup:

So the AFR thing is interesting to me - do you have that info from either of the baseline runs? With the intakes you're hitting at or slightly under 11.8, which if anything sounds a bit on the rich side of a perfect tune. I was expecting that some of the gains were coming from the new intake leaning things out, so this seems weird (but in a good way) to me. Am I even thinking about all this correctly?

Wow, I really didn't think that intakes would be able to make this kind of difference on a VQ engine. I thought they already breathed pretty well. So with HFC and Stillen exhaust you could be looking at 310whp, awesome!

I would suspect this is a non-issue. You're not really trying to force air into the filters. When you hit the throttle, they *suck* the air in. As long as they're not placed in some wierd low-pressure area, they'll pull in whatever air they need just fine. The important thing is that the air they have available to suck is cold (relatively speaking). They look fine to me from a water perspective as well, assuming you don't do something stupid like ram a garden hose nozzle up under your intake grille and try to kill them.

Thanks for the explanation! also this is indeed an amazing write up! thanks man... if i was working for STILLEN i would continue sending you products to perform independent testing/write ups... this pretty much made my decision to purchase the intakes... :tup:

Good job, RCZ! I'll be getting another dyno on mine next week, so we can compare results then. (Plus we'll be able to see what these intakes combined with the exhaust and HFCs yield number-wise.)

I'm glad we are seeing some different dyno results. The results posted by stillen was a little dissapointing to me because of the 18hp gain was really only after 6500k rpm -7500anything below that was about on par with stock numbers.. from your graph we see big gains from 0 all the way up to redline.

LOL! It's not our first rodeo.. :)

We did over 50.. yes.. five zero.. iterations of this intake design before we were happy with it.. all of it on the dyno..

Every little detail of the intake can make or break the horsepower gains..

Thanks for the review Raul, it seems like everything went smooth, I'm glad.

I think your gas mileage this tank might not be so good.. after 5,500rpm this thing screams.. but you've got to dump the right pedal to get there..

:icon18:

^ I was thinking about this while driving back home. Its so tempting to ride out the gears now :)