I've had the Budget y-pipe and b-pipe with resonator (with stock muffler) for a little while now and I had been extremely satisfied with the sound. It is a quiet sound and deep at low RPMs. At high RPMs I get a nice hiss.

Today I put the Budget test pipe in. Firstly, the guys at Budget put the O2 sensor hole too far towards the middle of the pipe so I had to pull the O2 sensor cables right out of the floor of the car and then stretch it as far as it would go and it just made it. Gotta slap the drunk out of the guy that made this pipe.

Anyway, the pipe install was alright, except that on the y-pipe end, the bolts that the Nissan parts manager supplied me with were TOO SHORT! I think you need different length bolts for the y-pipe end and the b-pipe end. So I had to use a temporary fix and use two wrong size bolts (but they were longer so it at least fit). Now I have a little leak between the test pipe to y-pipe. I was aware that my car would be a little louder. But when we put the car down and fired it up, it was about 10x louder than it was before!!!

My question is, would that be due to the slight leak between the test pipe and the y-pipe or does going from y-pipe + b-pipe to y-pipe + b-pipe + test pipe really make the car THAT much louder???

Hope I can get a few opinions on this. I'd greatly appreciate the help. I don't like the sound as it is right now. But I hope that it is mostly due to the fact that I have a leak.

Thanks.

 

It's most likely because of the leak...We fired up my car after installing my y-pipe and it sounded like a V8 at idle...i was like err, it wasn't add THAT much noise....we got back under, and tightened up the bolts some more, and it was fine....so yes, it is the leak (99% sure anyways)

 

I hope the noise is all from the leak! Did you also have to get new gaskets for both corners of the test pipe or did you use the existing ones? I just want to make sure that the seal is nice and tight on both ends.

 

I will second this. I had my y and b put on but the
thread on the 02 sensor was damaged. I had to drive
to the auto parts store with the o2 out of the b-pipe
and it sounded deafening! Onced replaced it has had a nice sound
from then on!

Make sure it's sealed, I felt a huge power loss also!!

boo

 

As I said, this happened when I installed my y-pipe, don;t have a test pipe..I used all new gaskets for the 2 o-rings and the ypipe-cat...

 

Yes I feel that too...

 

Okay I took the car into a local exhaust shop and they were really cool about taking care of this for me. They installed new gaskets, new bolts, and fastened it in real good. Now the car sounds awesome! It is not much louder than it was before and it has a nice little deep tone to it.

One little concern I do have is that there is a tiny bit of a leak between the test pipe and the b-pipe... the falanges don't quite meet perfectly. There is no audible sound like there was when I had the leak on the front because of the incorrect bolts. But there is a very tiny spot where I can feel the exhaust gas leaking at that join point.

Is there anything to be concerned about in terms of performance/power loss? Should I get Budget to fix the falanges on their b-pipe and/or test pipe so that they meet perfectly?

 

This brings to a question... How much louder is it after installing a Y-Pipe, when you had the stock pipe before? I'm wondering cause I use my car for transporting people at work and I want them to be able to talk in the car, even in the highway you know.
I have the Frankencar intake, the sound it does is fine since it's only at acceleration ya know... It's nice and not that loud.

So how much louder is it putting a Y-pipe?

 

The Y-pipe isn't loud at all. You can barely hear it in the cabin - unless of course you're at WOT but even then the intake overpowers the sound of the Y-pipe. IMO the sound in the cabin is barely noticeable

 

2 quick questions...does the ypipe make a much more noticeable differance than the frankencar intake? i jus installed the frankencar and i can't really tell the diff. and also, does the b-pipe make a difference in power?

 

The y pipe should make a noticable difference, I have seen dynos with gains of 15 HP from a y-pipe. The B-pipe on the other hand probably will not be noticable, gains from a b-pipe are only about 5 HP. In my opinion a UDP is a more cost effective mod than a B-pipe.