New member here. Wattup everyone?

[Healed Will]

Hello all,

I stumbled across this website while searching out performance parts for my 09 Altima Coupe thats a little more than a month old.She's charcol grey, leather with moonroof, cvt trans, and was a demo model with 5,500 miles on it. Except for a few minor gripes (dashboard rattling, excessive road noise, etc) ...its a great car.

Aside from introducing myself, I had a few questions:

Im interested in the Racingline Y pipe. One of my significant concerns is that I want the car to remain as quiet as possible (or as close to stock). I suspect the Y pipe may increase the sound some, but with stock exhaust is it only slightly noticeable? ....or is it quite different?

Second question hinging on that would be: is it worth it??I think the $289 for the Y pipe is fairly reasonable considering it is stainless, but is that the most restrictive part of the exhaust?Are the stock mufflers just as restrictive and/or the piping leading to them from the Y pipe?

Again, I want to stress the order of quiet and comfort before performance. Now I understand some may say: Then why didn't you get a Lexus? Well...Lexus' are very, very nice....but Im happy with my Altima.

I do like more HP though....and I do like comfort, and reliability.

My other question would be for the Cold Air set-up. Personally, I believe in any matter, living off the coast on NC its waaay too risky to run cold air. Just in the month Ive had my car, I've drove through 8 inches of water or more twice!!! Its not usually like that....but better safe than sorry.But there is a company that makes CAI's for mostly trucks, called Volant. They are one of the better high quality manufactures out there. They're cold air intakes are truly...cold air. They are boxed in as a stock intake would be, but with much larger housing and way more efficient air flow. Ive searched and searched....but to no avail. In fact Honda Civics used to have something like this for racing called a 'comp box'. Performance wise, they are very competitive if not sometimes actually better.

Currently I know of nothing out there for our AC's....but since some of you guys are in the engineering world, I would love to see something out there like that.

And last, how much of a difference in ride quality will the strut bar and rear sway bar make? I want to reduce the roll, while retaining a nice feel to the ride.

--------If your interested in what mods Ive done so far.....none! lol. But I do have a full system getting ready to go in with an enclosure by Zenclosures. Also I plan on doing the whole vehicle in dynamat extreme to dampen any road noise. possibly a Y pipehigh flow air filterstrut barswar barand endlinks are potentials for the futureand eventually the correct grille replacement...but havent seen the right one yet.

Well, sorry for the long winded post...but hello again, and thanks!

Peace

[marlin29311]

Welcome to NICO! You've definatly found the right place for help...

I can't speak to the y-pipe, as i don't have one...im sure there are others that can.

The one intake though, that came to mind was the AEM intake kit for our car...

http://www.aemintakes.com/sear...-499P

K&N also makes a similar type one.

There is no real "box" style for our cars....but nor is there a real CAI for our car - the intakes everyone has are just the short ram type, as there is no where in the engine bay for a CAI...

[PHENOMenalVinyl]

none of the intakes out for the altima are really "cold air" they just say they are

[Bmore-coupe]

Welcome to NICO!

The only question that I can comment on(that hasnt already been addressed) is the strut bar. I have the Stillen STB, and noticed a significant decrease in body roll. However, my car was already lowered when it was installed, so Im not sure of the benefit on stock suspension.

You will find the answers to all of your questions on this site.

[LongBeachCoupe]

Welcome to the club!!!

http://forums.altimas.org/zeromain thats the link you should bookmark!

All the info here is in its proper section (for the most part)... this type of discussion is in the "Performance" Section.... take a look over there, all the answers are within!

The search button works too, and we are always here to help you out! (just try and post in the right section if you can, if you arent sure, dont worry theres no beatings issued!)

[XXplosive990]

as for the y-pipe on the stock exhaust....thats what i have,. so i can help you with that. The noise was definately way raspier after i installed the y-pipe, i didnt really notice it to be any louder but the sound that was produced by the exhuast did change.

Performance vs $ wise i think its worth it, i definately can feel and have seen the difference that the y-pipe makes.

[Rob.Vegan]

I have the Racingline Strut Bar on my stock suspension and as soon as I put it on you can tell it's a bit stiffer up front. Not too much and I didn't notice any more road noise than usual. If you are planning on getting the bars you should definitely get both strut and rear sway, I haven't got my sway bar yet but I have heard It compliments the strut bar very nicely

[D-Roll]

Welcome to Nico! Happy modding

[desertdragon]

wow, that's a long post. Welcome to the forum.

If you want to keep the car quiet as stock, I have a recommendation for you. Don't change to an aftermarket intake, don't change to aftermarket exhaust, because these 2 mods will definitely make your car louder.

You should just focus your mods to the suspension of the car to improve the handling. Since you have the 3.5, you don't really "need" more HP, imo.

[Healed Will]

Cool...thanks for the real world experience.Hmm...this is a tough choice. You said "way raspier". I wish I had the opportunity to hear it. You know, I pride my car in being virtually silent when I start it. Last engine I owned was a 5.3 v-8 with no cats, stainless steel headers, 3' mandrel stainless exhuast true dauls, with x pipe and two spintech mufflers (yall should check these out!!!)

You said its not louder, but raspier. Hmmm. Im just trying to wrap my mound around that. Was it very noticeable? Did it just change the tone some? Because if it went a lot lower, then it would seem to resonate insie of the cabin more.

I believe the perfomance is there...which is why I wanna go with it...I guess the only thing I can ask is: do you mind giving more a detailed explanation of the difference?

Thanks

[Joeskey]

welcome to the forum

[SHIFT_COUPE]

Welcome to the party Will!

[XXplosive990]

well the one thing i noticed the most was that my start did get WAY louder than it used to be. the most noticeable difference in loudness is at the start. the rest of the time its just raspier then it used to be but not any louder. The noise inside the car didnt really change much either. sounds the same as before inside.

Heres a video i took. although i think it sounds pretty different in the video then it does being there in person, it kinda shows what i mean when i say raspier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbSXm76hDk4

and heres something to compare it with, this is what the stock coupes exhuast sounds like on a video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzaNAkPCKbU

[DiamondWVU]

Welcome to the club bro! Enjoy