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after months of posting, researching, emailing (thanks GR) i finally decided to drop some $$$ into an exhaust system. currently my z is at stage iii with intake, ecu, and now the exhaust system. well after a week of driving, here's my take: LOOKS- awesome! very bold and aggressive. its a unique look that people are gonna a)love or b)hate with a passion. there's no in-between =) but i do have to admit, somedays i just wake up and ask myself "what the heck did i just do to my z?!" it's a bit of rice, but that's okay. LOL SOUND- very deep. at idle it is an extremely LOW rumble and i challenge any other exhaust to beat this in terms of lowness of tone (even B&B). very sweet tone for a sports car. at WOT, the exhaust just SCREAMS. i love it. LOUDNESS/RESONANCE- subjective but significantly louder than stock, and noticeably louder than the stillen system. the loudest it gets is between 2000-2500 rpm under load. no real resonance (maybe very slight) from the exhaust alone. above 2500 rpm, the noise level starts dropping off. highway cruises will NOT cause you migrains =) now the real question that everyone was waiting for... LOW-END TORQUE- *sigh* my worst nightmare did come true. i did feel a noticeable loss in low end power. the z pulls a lot stronger on the highway, but feels weak at the light. it almost feels as if i'm driving a honda and have to wind up the vtec engine to extract power =( grec your i'm surprised you didn't notice any low end loss in your convertible. to be more exact, with my stock exhaust my z would shoot out if i hammered it in 1st gear at 3000K rpm. with the hipers, it doesn't exactly surge like before. damn. would a pulley cure this? PRELIMINARY TESTS: i decided to do a bit of 0-60 testing with my apexi rev/speed meter (directly hooks up to the ecu, and i found it to be fairly accurate). the best time i got with my stock exhaust was around 6.7 sec. with the hipers? *gulp* 7.5 sec. to be fair, they weren't the best launches and the gradiant of the road could have affected this as time as well. but i do feel like i won't win any street races from a light anymore. from a rolling start at 25 mph is a different story. SO...that's my honest take on it folks! bought the Hipers for a great price ($575 from drizzt) but had to go through hell trying to get them (like everyone else right ;) LOL but to his credit i did get the tracking number and the exhaust came fine and in one piece. do i regret it? i don't think so. just have to get used to this new driving manerism...and maybe add a pulley down the road. but it is close to $400 cheaper than the stillen's system so its your call. hope this helps answer some of the q's you NA'ers have. if you have further q's, just drop me an email. peace...
mike
kim_michael@jpmorgan.com
1990 PearlGold Stage3 NA |
17:37:41 04/25/01
