PLease vote are the vg headers that bad. Also please leave some feedback on why you voted what you voted.

 

Do you mean pacesetter headers?

 

I didn't know they were considered bad

 

locate anyone that has successfully added a pacesetter "header" AND has seen good gains.

The stock exhaust manifolds are as good as they get. They are individually piped for one, and all you need to add to that is a y-pipe from warpspeed. The stock y-pipe is a weird-shaped contraption that send exhaust gases forwards (to the front) before going backwards (to the rear).

 

Sola, the VG manifolds are a cast design. there's lots of room for improvement, just not in the Maxima engine bay and not at the price anyone here is willing to pay for it.

the VE uses a stainless steel, tubular manifold, but it's still not all that great. clean one up and look inside it and you'll see all kinds of welding flash, overlapped pieces of steel, and other poor assembly qualities.

The Y pipe sends the gasses forward, then bends them around and directs them into the proper flow direction before merging with the other side. they do this to get equal lengths from both front and rear. the problem is the pipes are just too small for high performance use. Nissan did a decent design here, just too small. the exhaust manifolds are a different story though..


the problem with headers is that the pacesetter stuff is absolute crap. the design and quality both suck, and they weren't even designed for this engine to begin with!

 

ah I see. i was always under the impression (for some reason, not sure why) that both the vg and ve ex. manifolds were both tubular and were the best and only options we had. While we had the front one out of my friend's ve lastweek, I noticed it had a lot of black stuff on the edge of it and I figured it was just 12yrs of carbon build up. But we couldnt get it off at all.....must have been the overlap you mentioned. I learn somethign new everyday...hmm

 

Isnt that an oxymoron, a good pacesetter header?!

 

one thing though... the Z31 turbo manifolds have been proven to flow enough exhaust for 400 whp. i know for sure that the maxima manifolds would actually flow better because it has much better openings. if you take a look at a Z31 turbo manifold you'll see that they run all of the exhaust through the small holes of the turbo flange.

i'm sure you can improve the flow... but if these do indeed flow better than the Z turbo manifolds you won't be maxing them out in a very long time. to even find out you would need to build the engine and super charge it or run lots of nitrous. if you went turbo you'd be chaning the manifold design anyways unless you used a reverse y-pipe design which i don't recommend too highly.

one thing i just thought of... maybe if you make a header setup that has a, i believe, 180 degree seperation and are equal length to make a scavenger effect you might then see a huge increase in power but that would be a diy project since that would be very expensive to have someone make.

 

thank you all for your input not mtcookson are you saying the turbo manifolds will fit on my vg w/o modification?

 

the manifolds will... but you'll need to do something about the turbo location or front motor mount to get the turbo on. there are a few other things like oil filter and such.

go to http://members.cardomain.com/mtcookson i have info there about all of it.

 

The headers work. I can't complain. They havent rusted out or broke.

 

Some people with pacesetter headers say that there's an improvement when they are at high rpms and/or highway speeds. Maybe I should buy a set and do before/after dynos to finally settle this.

 

VG RIdah if you want to use my set for dyno testing it would be kool i am in the process of my engine swap...just takin ma time since i have another car, and have been thinkin bout a set of Cattman headers...

 

Cattman sells headers. Never knew that. I'm thinking about getting headers but I don't know how they'll match up with the warpspeed y-pipe. I heard that they don't connect without getting a headache.

 

I bought a warspeed pipe and the headers and they don'y match up what so ever....i decided to go with the headers hense i still have the warspeed pipe in the box!

 

only limited group deals he sells, and at random times. IIRC, his headers do away with y-pipe, as they have their own. headers will make a difference in mid to high, mostly high. so prepare to get radar-detector as well.

cattman headers run about $850; made in New Zealand at a race shop. takes couple of months to arrive. he asks for deposit. as far as i know, the offer is not currently up.

i have these headers, but have been a lazy a$# and not installed them.

 

Bonelite i know we have spoken b\f but do you have any pics that you have taken of the Cattman headers>? From what I have heard they are 10x better quality than the Pacesetter...

 

hey, man. i remember you. i decided to keep them. i want to put them on finally and put this topic to bed. i will ask around to borrow a digi-cam over the weekend and post them. they are gorgeous, btw. and the quality of them is not in any way comparable to pacesetter. we are talking a different planet here.

hold on, and i will post some pics.

 

Very kool i know the downpipe portion on the Cattman has a collector unlike the pacesetter which does not.

 

----->right

 

the pacesetter ones were designed for the pathfinder/300zx/hardbody before the idea of slapping them on a max came about.
straightening the air flow is going to help some, yes you're going to have to modify it.
{i speak from experience here}

i had to do a little modifying to the header on my. not every single header is a slap on job. those are expensive.

 

>>ok. an update if you all care: i am using a throw-away camera to take pics of the cattman headers. i could not borrow a digicam. so don't flame me too hard if the pics come out sucky.

anyway, i'm having them installed, too, as i have had a growing exhaust leak that has just gotten unworkable. awful. so now is the perfect opportunity to finally do this. i have found the car to run like **** with the exhaust leak, mostly at low-rpms on acceleration. it probably throws off the general compression of the entire motor and makes it do all sorts of awful things with the O2 sensor and other daisy-chained relays.

also, i neglected to dyno the car "before' headers because of my day-to-day schedule and expenses. so you can flame for that, but figure the car makes about 160hp, that is prollly about only 135-140hp to the wheels. and i have some other bolt-ons, too. we can talk about those later >>> but i will dyno the car after the install, for dam$n sure.

>>the mods i have are: Cattman CAI, Fidanza, Valeo Stg 1, groundwires, *entire* (yes this means y-pipe) Warpspeed exhaust system with Magnaflow, lightweight skyline wheels (unsprung's sake). we can talk about how much this gains in total, guesstimate. i'd say about 10hp.

because i must schedule an appointment at the dyno place in gardena, i will not immediately have hard facts for you guys until later in the week. this goes for pics, as i must do it the old-skool drop-off and wait way.

i'm excited. will update you all again soon.

 

i had the cattman headers installed. this mod has made the most difference, engine-wise, than any mod done yet. they are totally awesome.
the car runs better than it has ever ran, accelerates smoothly and like silk. car has noticeably better throttle response and pulls with stout vigor. man, this is like a different car.

i will post a dyno chart as soon as i can get down to gardena. which is prolly next week.

this mod is WAY worth it.

the EGR system is bypassed. and the O2 sensor has been disabled.
car runs better, actually.

 

Damn 2 studs snapped next to eacother and it leaks like hell, and i cant get to it on the back header, to drill and tap....it sucks

 

Are you using cattman headers? SOunds like pacesetter to me.

 

i had bad leaks from my OEM manifolds from broken studs, too. car ran like absolute crap. we had to retap thread holes with die tool. did suck, but cattman headers are worth the prep torture time.

 

...for OEM parts. cattman headers go beyond OEM."