Maybe it is because I grew up playing racing video games or had a 2004 Mustang V8 with an off road x pipe and magnaflows, but I looooove loud cars. The Z has definitely been a whole new experience and its wonderful but I doubted if I would ever fall in love with its exhaust tone after driving my Mustang. It was the type of sound that made others snap their heads, caused ricers to get excited and fly ahead of me playing "rabbit" and made old people jump and give me the dirtiest looks.
I started the Z's exhaust build similar to many of you, GTM's test pipes which I purchased off Kastley. The test pipes produced a more aggressive exhaust tone and yielded 295.xx whp on a dynojet, not bad for my baseline.
YouTube - 370Z Carbon Fiber + GTM Test Pipes on a Dynojet for baseline runs
Later, I sought to change out the rear muffler to the GT Haus Meisterschaft rear muffler, alas it wasn't meant to be, I grew impatient with the production delays. After getting back my deposit I quickly jumped in on Tony's Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers Group buy.
I installed the long tube headers at meineke (huge mistake) and paired it with 2.5" straight tubing welded to the stock muffler. It was a homemade exhaust at best but I didn't want a Berk, Stillen, Fast Intentions, Ark etc. They just didn't give me the sound I wanted by then GT Haus had driven up the price on their catback setup and put it beyond my range. After the crap meineke install I got what may have been the loudest and raspiest Z34 ever put on the road.
YouTube - 370Z straight pipes 1st-4th
Now this setup wasn't without issue, the Meineke dumbfks destroyed my O2 sensors and I burnt up 2 rather quickly. Hell I didn't even realize it I just thought I needed a tune, I should have figured something major was up when I was getting 7mpg and literally dumping fuel on the ground.
Enter Performance Motorsports, Alex was great to deal with, I'll never forget his simple motto. When you start tuning cars something will always go wrong and it will get more expensive than you initially planned. A week later, I had 2 new 02 sensors an uprev tune and made pretty good power although I will admit, Performance's dyno reads high. Nonetheless, the tune fattened up the entire power curve and greatly improved driveability.
One thing stood out from the dyno numbers though, my hackjob catback flowded to well, I was leaving HP and TQ on the table. Still I was happy I was loud, fast and a nuisance :happydance:. As long as I didn't floor it around every turn and abuse the hell out of the car the cops wouldn't catch on and I could continue to enjoy myself. Living on Long Island New York gave me plenty of road to cruise on.
Enter the new exhaust. As a loyal and long time fan of this forum I am constantly purusing the for sale section I came across JerWa's thread on selling his Meisterschaft FULL catback and I was the first to jump on the sale. The asking price was perfect, I was about to purchase the last missing carbon panel (hatch) but I couldn't pass this up. Of course you have to ask the boss, but the wife said "baby, if that's what will make you happy." After a quick transaction, Jeremy had everything professionally packed and insurance, now all I had to do is wait. I left work early friday, ran to fedex and picked up two big boxes. Determined to get it home I pushed, pulled and pressed the boxes into my Camry. I ran home eager to make sure it was a real Meisterschaft, ripped open the boxes and there it was. Now, to get it out of the foyer and onto my car. I made a few calls and a friend of a friend owned a shop in Farmingdale New York called Tarmac Motorsports. Damien has a reputation of building Silvias, V8's, RB's, SR20's whatever you want the man is a mad scientist and he was willing to install it the same day! A quick trip to SK Speed to get a 3 inche 2 bolt gasket and on the lift she went. It was a fun shop experience, many other gearheads like myself were also there and frankly since I maintain a low profile in the NY car scene none of them had seen all the carbon. They thought it was awesome, I always said you have to see it in person to appreciate it. I told them all while the carbon was nice all I wanted was a louder and cleaner exhaust tone. Damien and John at Tarmac were patient and deliberate with the install, Damien even put it back on the lift while someone else was in the car and checked for leaks by giving it a few revs.
The best part, the second we fired her up everyone in the shop hooted and hollered, this was something else. One of the guys there told me quietly, we're all waiting for you to leave we want to hear it. Well, I slowly backed her out, took the turn easy and on the first straight opened her up. To this moment I have not been able to think of a word to describe it. It is amazing. It is loud, probably to loud for many of my co-forum members but that's what GTHaus wanted and what I've been chasing. THERE IS NO RASP it is a clean loud sound, the drone isn't that bad, its bearable and its a bit quieter inside the car with the windows up than outside. Even with the colder temps in NY, I've put the heat up, rolled the windows down and enjoyed myself, this one is going to be hard to keep under wraps. The first night home, my friends were over till 5AM and the Mrs. took the Z for a beer run around 4AM. I couldn't resist I proclaimed to her as she pulled away "go baby go!" I heard her just about the entire way to 711. As she came home, a little later a cop stopped by a rare occurence in my gated community. The cop asked "what are you doing, we heard complaints about a mo-ped in the area." My response carrying my 18 box of long necks, "Sorry dude no moped around here." Of course as the dikish Suffolk County Officer he is, he asked me again what I was doing out, I said I live here and no I did not see a Mo-ped. I've never been so insulted and relieved at the same time, he called me a mo-ped but it just goes to show that they have no idea wtf they are looking for.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with currently setup. All it took to get the loudest and cleanest sounding Z was a set of Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers and the Meisterschaft. Of course as Alex said, something will always go wrong, and of course it did. My check engine light went on, I assume its because the tune is setup for a much more free flowing exhaust and thus is running rich up top causing the 02 sensor to go bad. An OBII reader gave a bank2 02 sensor error. It looks like I'll have to buy another set of 02 sensors in the future when I add intakes and a retune but even with those costs the price is still much lower than the retail price of the Meisterschaft. Gas mileage when driving normally got better and I'm sure theres no leak. I love it, and I promise for those of you who read all this I'll get a clip up soon. Cheers to the Z community and I hope to see some fellow NY'ers on the roads soon, you should hear me coming :tiphat:.
