Just installed AAM Competition S-Line Short Tail Exhaust
 

I recently purchased the AAM Competition S-Line Short Tail Exhaust and installed this evening with some buddies. I wanted to share the install as I couldn't find much on the prime other than material provided by he manufacturer. So here it is: Everything was pretty straight forward. Its possible to do this without jacking the car up, but it makes it much easier raised, on jack stands, which we did. My Z has about 13,000 miles on it so the bolts on the pipe flanges were pretty snug. We used the 3' lever from the jack to provide enough leverage to free up the nuts, just slipped it over the socket wrench. The stock muffler is hung by three hangers, two at the rear and one on the driver side, more forward than the other two. The two rear hangers are what the new AAM pipes used. We removed the entire hangers, rubber and bracket, from the car, still attached to the stock muffler. It just seemed easier to remove the rubber from the hangers after the whole thing was free from the car rather than struggle with rubber underneath the car. There is one smallish black heat shield on the passenger side that needs to be removed which was held on by three nuts, no biggie. After everything was cleared out, we slipped the rubber bumpers still attached to their brackets, onto the new pipes hangers. Everything lined up pretty good so we snugged the flanges in place and replaced the four nuts onto the flanges. Then re-attached the two hanger brackets with the pipes already hung. Tightened everything down and cleaned up. Fired her up and she purred. ...loudly. It's certainly a drastic change in the sound of the car which is what I was going for. The guys helping me have a Evo X with straight pipes and a Mazdaspeed MX-5 with muffler delete. The AAM pipes made my Z a tad louder than both of their cars. I'm confident it's only a matter of time before I get a ticket for a loud exhaust. It's pretty loud in low RPM (2-4k) on acceleration and deceleration. It has a nice quiet spot somewhere around 4-5k under cruising throttle. I'll post some videos with pro audio soon. Just got a new Sony FS-100 that will be used for some nice vid clips in the future.

Good write up. I love the sound of the shorty's. Very aggressive and exotic. In for the pics and a video maybe?

my shorty's stayed on for about 15 min. because i also have a test pipe. (ear bleeding loud). but it would be interesting to hear them on a car with stock cats. probably sounds a little more civilized

anyway we can get a video? im considering this exhaust too

I made a quick video thus morning with my iPhone but the audio quality is horrible. I will put up a video with quality audio very soon.

does it drone bad on the interstate? and is it raspy?

It does drone at a certain RPM but it really depends on throttle position. If it starts to drone, I simply change gears and throttle pressure. It has a nice aggressive rasp to it at around 4-5k RPM under full throttle. For example, I drove it for a good hour on the freeway from Woodland Hills to Santa Monica, including PCH and it wasn't bad if I was aware of what RPM/throttle position I was at. Trying to figure out how to demonstrate the different throttle sounds without hanging a camera out a window like every other idiot on youtube.

Okay, here is the first video I've made so far. I have to warn you, DO NOT turn up your speakers until after the third rev. I set the audio recording to manual, lower than average so that the high revs didn't spike the audio. The first scene is backed up against a cement wall so may seem a little louder. Forum rep appreciated, Enjoy!

Imagine that times 5 if you add test pipes. LOL it beastly.

sounds good

I might go with a high flow cat, but I don't think I could handle a test pipe.

Sounds good man, glad you like it.

Man that sounds aggressive. very nice! Sounds deep almost v8 like with an exotic twist. Did you notice a slight performance gain?

No noticeable performance gain. I could always bring it to Precision Z around the corner from me and put it on their dyno.

Hey MQDuclos are you still impressed with the AAM? Really considering since the muffler shop near my place quoted $275 for a muffler delete. I would prefer an easy bolt on over slicing and dicing my stock muffler.

Please advise! Cheers.