Fun morning at AAM
 

Let me start off with saying that Adam, Jon and the whole team at AAM are a pleasure to work with. I am definitely going to go back for more work from them. AAM's facility is pretty nice, and there are quite a few GTR's to drool over. They helped me take care of getting a shiny new intake and exhaust installed, and some dyno time as well. I had them install the Stillen G3 and Stillen exhaust.

On the dyno the Z (stock) made 274 whp and 223 torque (SAE corrected) to give us a baseline. Then they put the new intake and exhaust on. After the mods it was back on the dyno and made 298 whp and 238 torque (SAE corrected). No tune, just the new parts so far. I was impressed that the gains were throughout the power band. It was nice to see a 24whp gain overall :tup:.

The Z sounds a ton better and the drive into work was not long enough. Definitely need to go for a good drive one evening this week. I may have to check out some of RandyD's suggested roads.

:tup: :driving:

Nice gains.

Thanks, I was surprised that the gains were that big, I had anticipated less.

Awesome! Congrats. The guys at AAM have always treated me and my Z very well.

24whp gain off intake and exhaust? Sheesh, wish I could have picked up that much power off mine :shakes head:

Thats awesome man, I cant wait to get to my intake, and springs installed, eventually.

No problem Akbar! Thank you for the review and this is one of my first here finally :D. I was also surprised by the gains just goes to show how restricted those 2 items are from the factory. Car sounds perfect now! Mod bug will be biting VERY hard soon I am sure :tup:

We are also working on the showroom with any down time we can get to make it a little more comfortable. Hopefully be all set next time your up!

-Adam

Eastwest which springs did you go with? I am looking at springs or coilovers now, and trying to figure out what I want to do.

No probs Adam, you guys are really easy to work with. I still have to come by to pick up my old exhaust, I am going to do that later this week.

He went with the swift springs but hasnt had them installed yet. I can tell you this much, for the price, swift springs are great. Ive got them and it lowers the car perfectly and handling is pretty good. You can buy Koni shocks to go with them but they arent absolutely necessary.

I cannot speak for coilovers since ive never put them on any of my cars in the past.

Sounds good! Just as a head up we are heading out early Thursday (4pm)


-Adam

Thanks, I will have to get a ride from someone who has them.

Those gains are awesome :tup:

Which intake/exhaust did you go with? AAM?

I went with the Stillen G3 intake and Stillen exhaust.

Nice! I also went with the G3's but got the Berk exhaust instead of the Stillen.

You gotta love Stlllen's stuff...:tup:

I was considering the Berk, but got a great deal on the Stillen so went with it. :happydance: I love how it sounds. In person I like how the tips look actually, they are growing on me.

Thats kinda the way I feel about my ARK, it just sounds mean, and it looks sharp on the Z.

Yeah the stock Z just doesn't sound right. As soon as you add that deep tone to the exhaust, the car sounds so much better.

Same reason I bought my Berk, I got a good deal on it :tup:

It looks like we all got good deals on our exhausts. Best investment made, hands down.

I agree it's totally worth doing it. Of course now the mod bug is starting to hit, have spent the evening planning out the next few mods. I am pretty sure suspension is next, need to drop the Z a bit (can't keep looking like I am driving the off road edition) have less roll and better turn in.

Akbar I am going to be putting together some suspension packages here shortly. Different stages 1-5 so to speak. I am flying home this weekend to Rhode Island so the time I am stuck at BWI waiting for my flight I will be working on this!


-Adam

Thanks Adam :tup:

Adam,

in an earlier thread that was posted within the mid-atlantic forum there was a fairly substantial debate over intakes and whether or not they are worth it.

I believe, but am being lazy and not searching for the post, that it was said by others (that are not vendors) that intakes are not worth the money to install and buy - that realized gains are small and that intakes are efficient in stock form.

Can you give your opinion here as I am looking into exhaust, HFC, intakes, etc. next.

thanks and apologies in advance if this hijacks the discussion.

You can do cost efficient intake mods if you don't want to do the full cold air intake setup. Post MAF tubes and drop in filters should run you around $200 I think and they're pretty simple to install yourself.

To be honest I haven't been around Z cars to much to give you a true professional opinion. We NEED to do some actual Dyno Testing here. Our Shop Z does not have a motor right now as we are in a developmental stage of building a a very efficient turbo setup for the 370z. The biggest thing is looking at Actual dyno graphs. When we did Akbar's 370z we did a full catback and stillen G3 intake and gained 20+ wheels through the entire power band. Moved the entire graph to the left which is amazing.

What can kill an intake is turbulence in the pipe. We are also building a intake kit right now that should work VERY well, more details on that when I have more information.

With the way technology with these cars has rapidly progressed over the last several years I can see it actually not working but I can also see it working. Drop in filters are GREAT and a bang for your buck. Hopefully we can get some testing done soon.


-Adam

Post maf tubes (mishimoto works just as well as the more expensive Z1 motorsports) and K&N drop ins from Jomer were well below 200 for me. They may not throw out as much power, but the extra few horses the G3 throws out, isnt worth the 200 dollars....In my opinion at least.

hahaha... nice, that damn mod bug.:tup:

Mine was $260 out the door, from Z1 including the PVC tube upgrade.

So just $40 less than I paid for my G3's :stirthepot:

yeah, but I wanted to stay away from completely modifying sh*t.. thats just more of a pain in the azz.

Not when Kirk does it for you :roflpuke2:

Dude, kirk is MIA... :roflpuke2::bowrofl: