Teaser: AAM Competition S-Line Midpipe (2.5" H-pipe/intermediate pipe)
 

http://media.ziptied.com/members/fil...dpipefinal.jpg
baseline is with AAM Competition S-Line Short Tails only
second dyno is with AAM Competition S-Line Midpipe in addition to the Short Tails

Hey guys,

This thread has been inspired by edubs and a lot of others who have asked if we've made a mid section from the cat to connect to the short tails (which would ultimately bolt to the stock muffler as well)

I'm simply a mediator and this product will be inspired and designed by you guys! the 370z community!

We currently already make 2.5" H-pipes for our true dual, we will piggyback off this and design the midpipe to connect the H-pipe to the rear section. Our shop 370z goes on the lift today 8/17 for measurements of the midpipe!

The goal:

• 2.5" H Pipe and 2.5" Resonator mid pipes to bolt onto short tails or stock rear section
• This set up mating to short tails WILL be loud
• This set up mating to stock rear section should be close to stock

The purpose:

• Upgraded Y and Mid section 2.5" vs the stock 2.25"
• For those who have Short Tails and want to complete the catback
• For those who want to upgrade their cat back but want to keep sound to the minimal with their stock muffler

:tup:

repped for the great way for people to upgrade existing systems

Very interested. :tup:

bump!!

Interested!

interested in a non Resonated y pipe

we would be using our H-pipe that we currently have designed to go with our 2.5" true dual

I'm interested but just worried about the drone the shorties has already unless you could give me advice to lower it down on it

Sounds awesome! Wish you guys had this back when I was buying an exhaust. Can't wait to hear this setup in person :tup:

without a doubt the upgraded H pipe and mid pipe will not make the drone any better. With larger pipes this is only going to increase the note.

can't wait either! our shop 370z will be going on the lift in about 2 weeks to get this project rolling

Let me know when you're done with it, I'd like to check it out in person. Maybe we could have one of our MD meets at AAM so we can all take a look. Could be like the official reveal :p

Trust me I've been pushing this idea ever since I hopped aboard since the Open house was a semi flop because of the rain. As soon as this goes into prototype phase I will keep you guys updated with pics

Sounds good, I just want to hear it in person since that's the only real way to get an idea of what an exhaust is like.

Ever since I first heard the short tails on Randy's car, I've been wanting the same aggressive sound from my exhaust. Don't want to go through the hassle of taking off my Berk exhaust and then trying to sell it before buying a new setup. I decided that I'm just going to replace the Berk muffler with custom straight pipes, just like how the short tails are. Would have bought the short tails themselves, but they won't fit with the Berk midpipes.

bump!

Now yes, I do realize this will be extremely loud, bordering on what most people will consider rice/fart can, but I'm curious as to how much of the VQ's raw sound I can extract before I go deaf or get a ticket.

I currently have the short tails, which are a wonderful set of pipes. I think my hearing has degraded recently, but it's a small price to pay for the raw VQ sound!

I'd gladly look for a system that essentially eliminates the factory Y pipe and midpipe for a more free flowing, straighter H pipe configuration. I will soon be installing an OBX Y pipe and some test pipes until this system is developed. Let me get one thing straight though, you are retaining the Y pipe and redesigning the midpipe? Or are you taking out the Y pipe and midpipe, then redesigning them as a single (or two piece) H pipe?

Maybe some 12-18 inch resonators on the midpipe (after the H joint, before the muffler) would eliminate most of the low-RPM drone. Or perhaps create a Helmholtz resonator.

The pipe that comes off of the cats, what I'm calling our H pipe (some call Y pipe, some call X pipe, depending on design) we already have this designed and produced for the 2.5" true dual

we now just need to make the midpipe section, connecting the rear section (whether it be short tails, or stock muffler) to the 2.5" H pipe. We would definitely have to throw some serious resonators on there especially for those running the short tails already considering they have no mufflers lol

Now if this can work with the Nismo versions as well....I will be VERY interested.

There has been interest in the Nismo owner side to replace the stock H pipe, would this work?

yes, according to a few threads, the rear sections are interchangeable (between nismo vs base/touring/etc) which means our h-pipe + midpipe in theory should bolt up to both nismo muffler or non nismo muffler

I'm interested to see how you guys go about resonating the whole thing; the product would ideally serve to create a good sound in people running the stock muffler or those running the short tail pipes. I'm also curious to see how it affects people who have the stock cats, HFCs, or test pipes.

Also, if I am reading correctly, this is essentially the same thing as the true dual you guys sell; it will convert the Y pipe/H pipe/whatever into two pipes (given you actually use the H pipe from the true dual), which go down through the midpipe, into the short tails. This is essentially the true dual product using short tails instead of resonated cans.

I understand you're only gathering some mild interest, but why not simply "bend" the current 2.5" true dual AAM sells to fit the short tails? Mind you, I'm only an engineering student, so I don't know of any issues that would arise from such a jury rigged solution. To solve noise issues, you could vary the placement and size of the resonators until you reached a solution.

Either way, I'm also sort of interested in an ETA, if you can provide one. This will probably be the only midpipe replacement on the market for the Z; G owners (especially the X, AWD variant owners) would kill for something like this, if they didn't want to do a catback.

I feel there would actually be more interest if this thread were placed in General Discussion, although it might not exactly go by the rules... it's just that nobody actually reads the tech area all that often.

Any pictures yet of the H...X....Y....pipe?

Khoi can't post because his account is currently the only active AAM account, but it's not yet approved with sponsor status. He can't post anything right now, so we'll have to wait a bit.

I'll snap a quick picture in a second here

I'm back! haha not sure why my account became inactive anyways thanks for your order your test pipes shipped out this morning! Don't go deaf too fast on me now :tup:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...0/IMG_2236.JPG

here is a glimpse of our H-pipe that we currently use on the true duals. This is what we will be piggybacking off of to create the mid pipe

to answer this question, our current mid section in our true dual is bent to fit the rear sections of the true dual only. It would make most sense to rebend the true duals mid section to mate to the stock exhaust/short tails and then build the true dual rear sections from there but it sounds like we are going the harder route which we will discredit the true dual completely minus the H-pipe

the test car will go up hopefully in a few weeks and pretty much what's going to happen is we will bolt up the H pipe (from the true dual), bolt up the stock 370z rear muffler and build the mid section from scratch to connect the two

So you're basically just taking the hard way.

Sounds fine with me, as long as the hard way doesn't end up with a massive price increase for some steel piping.

Keep us posted for updates. (I'll try to preserve my hearing in the meantime.)

since drone was some of the intitial issue, will this new one be resonated?

I vote for resonated pipes too. If this works on a stock 370Z connecting the cats to the mid pipe, then this might be a solution to my warped Sunline H pipe.

no way i'm uprgarding to this if it's not resonated

If you read the first post, Khoi clearly mentions that it will have to be resonated for both stock muffler and short tail users, because as short tail owners already know, they're extremely loud compared to the stock setup and even most aftermarket catbacks.

So yes, of course it will be resonated. Last I checked, he wasn't trying to sell this to road racers.

I'm still not sure why there is so much confusion as to what I'm gauging interest on lol

I thought was pretty clear in the first post

object here is to build an H-pipe and midpipe (or post pipe) to connect to short tails or the stock rear section

why?
1) for those that own short tails, and want to upgrade the rest of their catback, they will now have the option to do so.. will it be loud? you bet ya, you have 0 mufflers of course it will be loud
2) for those that want to upgrade their catback but retain the rear muffler for additional exhaust flow but make it as quiet as possible

the picture above is of our 2.5" true dual H-pipe. The plan is to use this H-pipe, custom build the midpipe or post pipe section, this will include 2 pipes WITH resonators to connect to EITHER short tails or stock rear section because remember these are interchangeable

a stock exhaust system:
headers > cats > y pipe > mid pipe > stock rear section
headers > cats > 2.5" h pipe > 2.5" mid pipe > stock rear section OR short tails

the part highlighted in red is what I'm gauging interest on for the above reasons. Again the picture above is just the H pipe, we haven't built the mid pipe yet

i thought otherwise due to everyone else posting abou a non-resonated version.

my mistake.

I came off pretty aggravated. No offense intended, but I saw like three posts saying the same thing... does no one read the OP anymore?

I have recently been looking for either test pipes, HFC, or y-pipe that gives me a few more horses. I have heard the aam's with test pipes and its awesome.

CIMG1583.mp4 video by bigj_11_null - Photobucket

Just a little too loud for my everyday driver..

Now, I am in love with the short tails. I have actually had people tell me that they think its a GT-R before they see the car. I love that. I think the simplicity of the "bolt on" concept is great. The only downside is going 50 MPH up a hill. Drone like a mutha'...and the fact that the gains are so minimal, if any.

I would like a better flowing system, and like someone said before... If the price is right, i think its great.

I purchased the short tails for $415 after shipping over a year ago. Obviously prices have gone down a little since I bought mine, but even for $415- thats a hundred bucks or so over what it would cost for custom pipes. For $550, you can purchase a complete full exhaust with gains over +15hp. The only downfall--none of the exhausts online sound like the short tails.

If i was able to get gains and the same sound with less drone..i'd be sold. Sorry, I vented.

It doesn't take much to release the drone from the vq37hr. You have to remember the short tails delete your main source of sound control and deadening, there is just no way you can do this, get the sound, and have no drone

the exhaust you're talking about for $500 bucks I don't want to get into this debate now but they are that price for a reason.. some have luck, some don't.

I'll give you an example that actually occurred at the shop today. A customer GT-R was brought in to be checked for an exhaust leak, the culprit was a cracked downpipe, right at the turbo flange. We then tried to figure out what brand it was, the first dead give away was the fact that it WAS a shiny polish finish (typical of over the seas products) well it was shiny, but turned to a bronze/gold/purpleish hue so then we found out it's brand, I won't disclose that information, but that brand sells GT-R downpipes for almost half of what we sell ours for. The buying decision is obvious at that point, why pay 2x more for AAM downpipes that aren't even shiny. Well here goes it

Replica brand companies outsource; whether it be the materials only, materials and labor, etc and we all know where it goes to/from.. so we asked why did this downpipe crack, well we measured the gauge metal that was used, it's no where near the thickness of the stainless steel we use. Not to mention we noticed some rusting on the flanges.. they cut corners and use mild steel flanges.. we use stainless steel flanges. It's tough to compete in this market when stuff like this goes down but we just need to stay loyal and really push the idea that all of our parts are hand crafted by a production team that actually makes a proper wage

Be very careful when buying "cheaper" parts. I do not completely discredit them but I also don't fully encourage it. Some will swear by it, some extremely hate it. I personally fall right in the middle. Hey I rock a CNT downpipe on my subaru and that's an Invidia copy, I'm 100% happy with it. Hit or Miss is the best way to describe it

and that's truly my rant on why there are true duals going for $500

/rant

Well put- I appreciate your prompt response and insight.

Regarding the drone- I have learned to love the sound of the car, I just crank my volume up a little more.

I suppose you are right regarding the $500 true dual. & I didn't mean to offend you or the company. I knew something had to be off. I knew they welded differently, but i thought the steel was all the same. I just figured they cost a little less due to the fact that you're not paying for a large name brand..I did think that those who were successful and had good gains benefited. Maybe not for 50k miles but til' it breaks like you said haha...Getting over +15hp with exhaust alone is a great mod. With a price tag of $500 its great. But when you add the potential cost breaking and ruining something, the price goes up.

There was a reason I went for the AAM's and that was for quality, simplicity, and sound.

One of my videos are up on the site. I want to do a more elaborate version. Just recently aquired a few gopro hd hero2's that i will mount and get some quality HD sound.

If this new H Pipe looks good, I am in. & will record videos if it helps any.

awesome! We definitely would appreciate videos. I am surprised at how well the community accepted the short tails with the abundance of videos on youtube, but I can't wait to hear yours! There are already videos of short tails with test pipes and it sounds wild. I don't know how tolerable it might be, but it's obvious so people just love LOUD lol.


To answer your concern on why short tails cost as much as they do.
Here's the break down on that. Sure it might seem like you don't get much for what you pay for when buying short tails but bear in mind: we did all the test fitting for you, these are proven to be a bolt on application, guaranteed to fit, 100% stainless steel, mandrel bend. I can't say what you will run into when you go to a muffler shop but unless they specifically state it's mandrel bent, they are most likely crushing their pipes (mandrel vs crush bent makes a killer difference, both in performance and sound, not that the short tails really make any power) then you ask the question, will it fit? they will have to mock everything up and each time they do it, it's a custom job. You are now paying for a fabricating rate AND parts (piping, tip, flanges, hangers). Is it true 16 gauge T304 stainless steel? And if all these come out to match our short tails and it's cheaper, then cheers to you and the shop. But with our price comes the convenience factor of not having to worry about any of the above, just remove your stocker and slap these on :tup:

From your experience, what exhaust component should I add in order to keep somewhat the same sound the car has now?

I don't have $1200 to put down for the 2.5 true dual.
I do however have $400 and I am looking to gain some HP.

HFC? Wait til your H pipe comes out?

http://aamcompetition.com/images/F12687770.jpg

so by looking at our dyno plot you can tell a catback will provide you with decent numbers and then HFC's compliment off of that

I can't promise you your exhaust note will stay the same with either upgrades of HFC and/or the upgraded mid pipe that we'll come out with. The tone will definitely get louder, but hopefully not raspier

with the upgraded mid pipe and short tails, you would be looking at similar gains as the above graph, maybe even higher since you won't have any mufflers in the rear lol

the decision really is up to you, just letting you know we are running a special on our HFC for $399 shipped for September, but definitely don't let this be an impulse buy, take your time and I can extend this deal for you. Just don't come to me like 5 months later LOL