2012 Altima Coupe 3.5L V6

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

Just Bought My New Altima, Never Owned A Nissan Before... Am Joining This Forum To Meet Fellow Gear Heads To See If Anyone Knows Where I Can Get Parts For It...
Looking For:
HID's - Running And Fog Lights.
Exhaust - Cat Back.
Intake.
Headers.
Turbo Kit.

Anything You Guys Can Share With Me Would Be Helpful, Thanks.

PFC Christopher Abreu
172nd Infantry Brigade. "Blackhawks"

[mattyfo0z]

HIDs: http://www.ddmtuning. Both low-beam headlights and foglights are size H11

Exhaust: Check out YouTube to see what kind of sound you're looking for, although almost all exhausts sound pretty good on the 3.5.

Intake: Once again, check out YouTube to see what sounds best. Most stick with the more popular brands like AEM and stuff.

Header: Nobody makes a header for the 3.5 A/C yet. RacingLine does have a y-pipe, but that's the closest you'll get to the header.

Turbo kit: SpeedForceRacing has a turbo kit, it's a few grand for the whole kit. Comes with everything you need, I think. I'm not sure.

[DJ_B_Easy]

Welcome to NICO.

Here is a good place to start. Although most listed are 2011 components, they will fit your 2012. Double check with the manufacturers.

altima-coupe-aftermarket-performance-pa ... 34451.html

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

Going From A 2007 Pontiac G6 GT To A Nissan Altima SR... Is Like Having Sex For The First Time!!! Its f*** Awesome! I Love It!!!

[DJ_B_Easy]

My girl had an '08 G6 GT up until a few months ago...I know how you feel.

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

Alright So Far Everything Is Matching Up Between The 2011 And The 2012... Which Is The Best Exhaust / Intake Combo?

[DJ_B_Easy]

I have K&N intake, Racingline Y pipe, and Borla axle back exhaust. I love the combo. You are going to get about the same performance wise from any intake/exhaust combo so just YouTube it and see which sound you like best. RL Y pipe is a must have as well.

[RicerX]

Welcome!

You definitely need a Racingline Y-Pipe. I'm currently running a Greddy Spectrum Elite catback with it. The sound is unbelievably hot (right now, sounds meaner than my 370z, which is stock for now). I highly recommend that if you want to spend the money.

The AEM intake I have has been solid. There are plenty of nice options however. (Injen, K&N, Fujita, DC Sports)

[Ranga14]

I had AEM Intake and Nismo exhaust, Nismo sounds the best but you don't really gain much in terms of performance.

As for the turbo, SFR lists it for like $5,500 I believe. Do you have CVT or 6MT?

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

CVT... I Just Couldnt Get Over It Being Shiftless... I Was Like A Kid With ADD... OOH SHINY, I WANT I! Lmao

[rcboy514]

lol well thats a problem if you are wanting to go turbo. I don't believe there is anyone with a successfully running turbo CVT. A few have tried it and toasted the transmission. The power that these cars put out stock is about the limit that our particular CVT can take, so adding more power almost guarantees failure.

Apart from that sad news, Welcome to Nico! I agree with the above comments that the Nismo sounds the best (because I have it), but unfortunately the word on the street is that nissan is no longer making the nismo exhaust for the 3.5L. There are plenty of nice sounding exhausts out there though.

I also have the AEM and love it, but since all the intakes available for our cars are WAI, one doesn't have a significant advantage over the other apart from engine dress up.

The y-pipe is a must in the gain/price ratio.

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

lol well thats a problem if you are wanting to go turbo. I don't believe there is anyone with a successfully running turbo CVT. A few have tried it and toasted the transmission. The power that these cars put out stock is about the limit that our particular CVT can take, so adding more power almost guarantees failure.

According To SFR Turbo, They Have A Turbo For The 3.5L With The CVT Transmission... According To Them On The Phone They've Had No Problems With Any Of Their Builds...

[RicerX]

lol well thats a problem if you are wanting to go turbo. I don't believe there is anyone with a successfully running turbo CVT. A few have tried it and toasted the transmission. The power that these cars put out stock is about the limit that our particular CVT can take, so adding more power almost guarantees failure.

According To SFR Turbo, They Have A Turbo For The 3.5L With The CVT Transmission... According To Them On The Phone They've Had No Problems With Any Of Their Builds...

Of course they haven't... they want to sell you a turbo system!

Trust us, this has been beaten to death on this forum. Any of the more experienced coupe guys have tried this back when the coupe debuted for the 2008 model year and even some recently - any excessive power adders are totally fine for the engine, but absolutely roast the CVT, if not immediately then definitely over time. It cannot handle much more than typical bolt on power adders like intake/exhaust, but even some don't do so hot when the car is in stock form.

It's your money, but look around on the forums a bit and you'll find the result is the same. Two of the guys on here have even gone as far as converting a CVT Altima to a 6MT in order to facilitate their plans for modification.

[DJ_B_Easy]

Uhhhh...

Isnt Ranga boosted CVT? Low PSI though?

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

Ok I Had The Same Thing Happen With The G6... Low Boost... 5 - 6 PSI Won't Destroy It Immediately But Will Degrade The Transmission, Thus It Would Have To Be Changed Out... Which Ill Possibly Do But For Now, I'm Good With Small Power Adders... But In About A Year Or So, Shes Gonna Need MORE...

[rcboy514]

Uhhhh...

Isnt Ranga boosted CVT? Low PSI though?

I think he did a transmission swap if i'm not mistaken, I'll try and find the thread....

also I think Blake (adidas2go) was only running 7-8 psi when his cvt blew and that's relatively low boost for an aftermarket set-up. He would have to confirm that though.

[rcboy514]

ok I was wrong....I found two threads

this one is a guy named "ultimacoupe". He says with a transmission cooler and the turbo at about 5psi he hasn't had any probs, but idk what the HP gain is at only 5 psi?

post6179217.html?hilit=turbo%20cvt#p6179217

Here is ranga's...he also has the transmission cooler and around 5 psi.....hopefully these guys will chime in soon.

post5829333.html?hilit=turbo%20cvt%20ranga14#p5829333

[2012ALTIMA3.5L]

So To Close The Loop And Get My Discussion Rolling, Turbo Is Possible At Low Boost Level On The CVT... At Least For A Limited Amount Of Time... But I Have Another Question... I'm Loving This Car But It Seems To Lag At The Tree... I Know My Pontiac Did It Because Of "Fly By Computer" System... This The Same Thing? If So Does Anyone Have A Tune To Lessen Or Eliminate That Lag???

[rcboy514]

you mean there is like a hesitation from when you mash the pedal to when the RPMs go up? Or just like you can't get traction off the line?

our cars are electronic drive-by-wire, idk if that is the same as what the pontiac was or not...

[AlexN09]

I'm totally guessing here but often I feel like the car is deciding what to do when you mash the pedal down before it actually opens the throttle or engages the transmission or something.. I'm not sure but I know what you are talking about. Seems most likely to be the CVT system.

[CoupeVQ35CVT]

Ranga's coupe started getting a little 'weird' for the lack of a better word a couple odd months after he got his SFR turbo w/ trans cooler installed. It never was run hard except 3-6 PSI tops, for a few moments at a time. Another couple odd months later his transmission started to jolt when coming to a stop and he also described it felt like it slipped a little. I've personally experienced the jolting bit when coming to a stop. Ranga is still waiting for a shop to finalize the details on doing the swap, so for now he's driving another beast.

I would not recommend turbo on the CVT. It seems you are asking for trouble in the long run.

I would not expect any noticeable performance gain out of the cat-back and/or Y-pipe or any combination (I can't say much regarding an intake). When I had only a 2.5" stainless single muffler/dual outlet (like the stock setup) cat-back exhaust, going vs. Ranga's coupe when he only had Nismo exhaust, AEM intake and Bully Dog GT tuner, he was just barely noticeably crawling forward.

I got the RL Y-pipe later and with the same above mentioned exhaust combined, I went against a bone stock 3.5 coupe. There was no different in performance other than the random crawl forward above 80-85 mph by my car, but not with enough consistency.

With that said, the 3.5 comes 'alive' in the sound department with most exhaust systems (except dual fart cans, who wants to look like a $2000 Honda Civic wannabe in a V6? heheh I kid, kind of). The Y-pipe really adds to the character. Nismo sounds insane (good) and with a y-pipe even more so raw and aggressive. I'd recommend Youtube as well to listen to them all. I like mine, it's just loud enough without getting annoying.

[Ranga14]

What he said... It worked flawlessly for 5-6 months with hitting in-between 5-6psi and then I started feeling some oddities with the transmission. The car still runs (although a little jerky) but I don't drive it as much as I used to and have it set down to 3psi. I had always planned on doing an MT swap and am in the process of doing that now as CoupeVQ noted. I mean, who wants to run a turbo on a VQ at only 5-6psi forever? :P

As for the difference between bone stock and naturally aspirated mods, here's some vids CoupeVQ and I had taken...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BBtzHJvWmE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVNocgOm1AA

[QR25DE]

PSI means nothing unless we know what turbos are being used in every setup. A large turbo with Low PSI is different from a smaller turbo with high psi. It honestly means nothing at this point unless we're all talking about the exact same turbo.

I'll re-enforce the CVT issue, it's a bad choice. Even for buying the car new. Everyone seems to have problems with it. We have no complaints about the 6MT. Also with the 6MT there is the option to swap in the HLSD from the Spec V as well.

No matter what boost level or turbo, it will ruin the CVT. Done.