Anyone put down pipes on their 06' 350Z yet? (Please Help)

[brock xxx]

I am having a real bad problem with two different types of down pipes (test pipes or cat deletes) i put on my car and i am ready to kill myself over the whole thing because i can't figure it out.

It is making a real bad rattling noise mostly on the decell in between 2400 and 1900 RPM. when i'm in gear it's worse then when i'm out of gear, but either way it makes this noise. if anyone else is having this problem or has heard of this problem and can offer any kind of suggestions i would greatly appreciate it. i'm all out of answers.

Please help

[evildky]

are you sure you got the seated properly? could it be an exhaust leak? all the heatshileds put back securely?

[brock xxx]

Yea, It is coming from inside the down pipe. we put two kinds on and they bolth do the same thing. I'm thinking that they did something different on the 06 headers. I sent the pipes back to Stillen and they say that they found nothing wrong with them. This hole thing has coust me whey to much money and time. If anyone can help I will let you have my sister.

-B-

[evildky]

not having any real experience with the Z33 myself, does the stock exhaust manifold use a gasket when mating to the stock pipe? any chance you can get pic's on the stock and aftermarket pipe inlets?

[Exar-Kun]

I've had test pipes on my Z...didn't have a rattle..but they did crack at the elbow.

The pipes need to ahve a bracket on them, like the stock cats do, to keep them supported and restrain their movement. If you look closely at the 350Z exhust suppoorts...the only ones besides the bracket from the transmission to the cats is found near the rear wheel well on the drivers side. That puts a LOT of weight on the test pipes (the entire Y-pip structure), and if you think of it in terms of leverage, it's even worse. THis can cause a lot of problems, such as stress cracking (like mine) and also not being able to seal them correctly because of the forces involved.

TiTek makes a set from Phase2 I will be ordering soon that ahve a bracket to solve this problem....

Also, re-use the factoty gasket, it's a multi-layer whereas most companies will give you a standard graphite impregnated gasket. the stock one is much better.

-CHet

[brock xxx]

I have the TiTek down pipes on my car now. I know of this bracket you speak of and thought that maybe that was the problem and that is exactly why i bought the TiTek pipe. unfortonetly it did not solve the problem. Oh, and we did reuse that stock gaskets. Thought of that already as well.

Is your car an 06?
Modified by brock xxx at 8:40 AM 1/15/2007

[Exar-Kun]

Mine is a 2005. I had normal test pipes (without the support brcakets) and it has a raspy note below 3200rpm...is that what you are refering to? If so, you may want to go with resonated pipes as straight pipes have a very raspy metalic sound sometimes...

-Chet

[brock xxx]

what is a resonated pipe?

the sound is a rattle coming on the decell between 2,400 and 1,900. it does make a raspy sound on the way up aswell, but that is the least of my concerns.

thanks for all the help.

[C-Kwik]

Resonated pipes are just pipes that have mufflers on them, essentially. A small glasspack might do the trick. Most of the top exhaust companies use one or two of them before the primary muffler to keepo noise down while keeping flow restriction to a minimum.