joosdawg

iTrader: (9)

just wondering if any certain brand has ben known to put out more hp on the dyno than any other because there is a huge price differnce for say a ws or budget vs a cattman or stillen? is there any dynos for the cattman pipe anywhere for gains? jw cause im getting the cattman y at the end of the week and all i can find are dynos for budget and warpspeed
-ryan

Conrad283

iTrader: (2)

They'll put out about the same amount of hp. But if I lived where you did, I'd make sure I got a SS y-pipe, because the aluminum ones will rust and that's bad.

joosdawg

iTrader: (9)

o yea def with the stupid WI salt in the winter it wouldnt last more than 3 years tops
-ryan

myke321

Go with Budget, thier Y-pipes are SS and for about 190 shipped you cant go wrong.

Mr.Duck

iTrader: (8)

damn, i wanted the warpspeed, but i live in chicago.. im guessing warpspeed is aluminum?

sblax2000

The one in the group deal is the aluminum one, but they also make an SS, please correct me if I'm wrong. Do these Y pipes make a lot more noise with stock exhaust coupled with Injen intake? I am in the same boat, deciding between warpspeed and budget and exhaust wrapping them

Mr.Duck

iTrader: (8)

i heard that exuast wrapping aignt too good...

and how much is the SS one? is it more expensive?

myke321

The warpspeed SS is like 260, Budget SS 190. Do the math.

sblax2000

I thought wrapping reduced noise, I don't want my car any louder or ricier than it is, and that it reduced rusting, good for people who live at the beach

joosdawg

iTrader: (9)

myke321 i think u misunderstood although i never said but i was just asking i already have a y pipe lol. or lemme say this, i bought the WS one from the GD and found out it was aluminum and thats no good for wisconsin winters so i sold it and now bought a cattman y and was wondering if there better or if its just a high price for nothing better. i know they are the highest quiality pipe and its stainless steel insted of aluminum which is the main reason i sold my ws and got this one
-ryan

myke321

How can I misunderstand something you never said?

nostrixoxide

sblax2000,

To answer your question, yes Y-pipe is going to make a noticable difference in cabin noise. There is alot less restriction with a Y-pipe so additional noise will be the draw back. And yes wrapping the pipe will help reduce the noise, but I highly doubt it will ever be as silent as the factory Y-pipe was. Wrapping the pipe is only bad if you wrap the piping to tight. If you wrap it to tight, then the piping can crack. The pipe needs to have room to expand & contract. When the pipe is hot it expands, when the pipe is cool is shrinks. So as you can imagine too tight of a wrapping will put stress on the pipe & too loose of a wrap will not do the job it's intended to do. Wrapping is a good thing as long as it's done right. It will deffinitly reduce the tempatures under the hood & help keep heat inside the pipe. Only problem I can think of is if moisture gets between the wrap & pipe then it will rust.

joosdawg

iTrader: (9)

because i kind of implyed that i was looking to buy a new y pipe sorry for the misunderstanding
-ryan

sblax2000

is this noise mainly heard during WOT like an intake, or is it heard all the time, while cruising as well?

DAVE Sz

iTrader: (2)

All the time.

PLUMMAXSE

iTrader: (2)

Noise is only heard above about 4k rpm with the budget Y-pipe.

DAVE Sz

iTrader: (2)

If you have an aftermarket exhaust it's loud all the time.

TrackSmart

iTrader: (1)

COMMENT ON NOISE LEVEL: If you have a stock muffler your car will be ALMOST as quiet as before, despite the y-pipe. You'd have to roll down the windows to really tell the difference in volume. It will definitely be LOUD however if you've got a cat-back.

The only way the y-pipe alone will be very much louder is if it has that "buzzing" sound that some have reported due to vibration of the pipe. My Warpspeed pipe does this occassionally and it kind of reverberates in the cabin. It's been a while since it's happened, so maybe everything has "settled in" to place. I don't think anyone still sells the pipes with the "bees in the can" sound coming out of the flex section, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

nostrixoxide

I can honestly say there is a big difference in exhaust vloume at all levels of RPM's. From the minute I fire up the car to the second it redlines. At idle there is a big difference in the cabin volume compared to how the exhaust sounded before the Y-pipe. Once I step on the gas, the exhaust is basically voided out from my intake. But the sound is quite loud once it comes out of the muffler. It's not that so called "Ricey" sound either, it's very deep & powerful sounding! If you have ever heard a VR-6 VW engine it's similar to that but is deffinitly it's own distinct sound. I don't know how to explain it any other way except if your more into a nice quiet car then the Y-pipe thing probably isn't gonna be for you. To me it doesn't matter how silent of a muffler you have because that only quiets the exhaust down at the other end of the car. With the Y-pipe you are going to get more vibration/resonance in the front of the vehicle. Pretty much right around where your feet sit. Your best bet at eliminating the noise is if you dynamat underneath your carpet & up against the fire wall. Then you may be able to remove the majority of the sound the Y-pipe is going to add. Remember it has nothing at all to do with how quiet your muffler is. This noise is being made long before the muffler ever comes into play.

sblax2000

Thank you for the thorough response. I've heard that it doesn't make much difference and that it will make the car loud, so I think I'll give the y-pipe a shot, I can always turn the stereo up a bit more.

joosdawg

iTrader: (9)

if you think yours is loud my max has a non resonated b pipe and test pipe needless to say i have just pipe from the headers all the way to the muffler now thats hard to keep quiet...which makes me ask where is a good place to get a nice resonator lol im gettin kinda sick of having a loud a** exhaust it used to be fun but now its kind of annoying

1996blackmax

iTrader: (2)

If you do the right things the car should not be that much louder, my car sounds pretty quiet (I only hear a very slight hiss if I floor it, like when I am getting onto the freeway on an on-ramp from a dead stop, it happens toward the end of 1st gear at the upper end of the RPM curve). My car has a slight rumble when I first start it, and I can only hear a little bit of exhaust sound/rumble from the muffler when I take of from a stop and only if I have my window down.

I have a SS Warpspeed y-pipe. It is the newer ones that were supposed to be free of the bees in the can sound. I had noise issues with mine, I finally got rid of the rattling and vibrating noises by bending the catalytic converter brackets in. The only noise issues I had after that were the darn swarm of bees. I then decided to wrap the pipe, and this made a big improvement in getting rid of most of the bees in the can sound. One day I came across a thread by Dave B in which he mentioned that his car was not as smooth as before he put in the y-pipe. He then noticed that with his aftermarket y-pipe the bracket that is supposed to bolt down by the oil pan was not there. The OEM pipe has the bracket. This leaves the aftermarket y-pipe with only two areas of attachment instead of the original three, and puts more stress on the connection to the cat. I had noticed mine did not have the connection either. I ended up going to the junkyard and getting some new bolts as mine had been tossed out by the shop that put the pipe in. I went and got a large metal hose clamp and put it around my y-pipe and under the bracket around the oil pan area. The results were just as Dave had said, the car felt smoother. I thought that the lack of smoothness was due to my car being older, but the "Dave B y-pipe" mod gave my car back the smoothness it had before. The other benefit was that this mod also took away the last of the bees in the can noise I had, it was not much but I could still hear a little if I really stepped on it and the windows were down.

Here is the thread started by Dave:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=310324

nostrixoxide

Well i can tell you my y-pipe does not sound like the bees in a can. But It is quite loud from the additiona exhaust flow.

1996blackmax

iTrader: (2)

Well, you are lucky. There are many people that have dealt with the bees in the can issue, and as for me I am glad that I have resolved this. As far as the loudness, my car is not loud due to the additional exhaust flow. You may want to give the headerwrap a shot, this made things a lot quieter for me (it quieted down all of the noises the pipe made). I bought mine on Ebay for around $30 dollars. I know there are many people that do not recommend it. I even spoke to Dallas from Warpspped about it and he did not recommend it, but I decided to do it anyway since I wanted to quiet things down. Besides my y-pipe is stainless steel, and it should last me a little while even with the wrap (even if it did not last for many years, I could no longer stand the bees). I was going to take the wrap off after doing what Dave had suggested in his thread, but decided to keep it on. I figured that the OEM pipe has insulation on it, so I might as well leave my home made insulation on as well.

nostrixoxide

1996Blackmax,

Sorry if yougot offended by my post. I was baiscally telling the enquirer that even if your Y-pipe doesn't make the bees in the can noise some many people have had to deal with the Y-pipe is still going to make the cabin louder. And I also mention to him to use the wrap, but make sure to use it correctly if he wan't to reduce the noise. Another suggestion i mentioned was to apply some kind of sound deadening material like dynamat under the carpet & up against the fire wall if he really wants to eleimante the extra noise the Y-pipe is going to make. A quiet muffler isn't going to reduce the noise inside the vehicle up in the front of the car. It's only going to subdue the noise at the back, once the muffler has done it's job. Sorry for any confusion you may have experienced with my post.

TrackSmart

iTrader: (1)

You were giving reasonable advice, so no need to be apologetic to any of the other posters here. Clearly people have had different experiences with y-pipes. Better to prepare him for a little extra cabin noise (expect the worst) but hope that he finds his y-pipe to be very quiet (hope for the best). Hopefully his won't have the "bees in the can sound" that 1996BlackMax had.

Yes, the y-pipe for some people does cause some extra "buzzing" inside the cabin due to it's vibration. Not everyone has this problem, but some people do. And I guess it's possible (as Nostrixoxide suggests) that the air alone passing through this one section will cause extra noise, though that hasn't been my experience and doesn't seem like it would add any appreciable amount of extra noise. With a cat-back, however, that's another story as you creat a full 2.5" tube for the air to echo in. Gives a deeper sound, too, like going from a flute to a tuba (though not as dramatic as that).

Good luck. I hope your y-pipe ends up being on the quiet side of things since you seem very concerned about the noise levels in the cabin...

1996blackmax

iTrader: (2)

nostrixoxide,

I did not get offended at all by your post. I can see now that in the way I wrote it down it may have seem like I was trying to be sarcastic, but the total opposite is true. It's cool that you did not have the bees in the can issues that I and others have had was my point, just saying some of us were the unlucky ones. I think your advice was on point, I was just trying to add my experiences. I also wanted to let you and others know that the wrap came in very handy not just for the bees noise but the exhaust noises as well. You guys should take a look at the Dave B thread as well if your pipes do not have the hanger by the oil pan.

nostrixoxide

Alright fellas everythings cool.......................

You know I have noticed something that has been taking place more frequently recently on the org & I'm glad to see it happening. It seems that lately whenever I have see disagreements, conflicts whatever. I notice more & more people are looking past that & just trying to solve the problem at hand. Ofcourse there are still a few people on here that have the ego that makes them want to debate everything & knock down people for trying to help. It really makes me feel a whole better about dedicating my time here on the org. So big up's to everyone here for realizing what this place is supose to be like.

speedemn

iTrader: (14)

All the y-pipes give about the same gain. Gains are different for different people. Here is one extreme case with the Budget y-pipe (high mileage car): http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/504

In my case when I installed the Budget y-pipe my gains were not as drastic, but my numbers were higher than his stock vs stock and y-pipe vs y-pipe (my car had much lower mileage). Interesting to note that he has the crush bent SS Budget y-pipe. But most people get the mandrel bent SS version from Budget. It is definetly the best bang for the buck out of all the available y-pipes out there.

speedemn

iTrader: (14)

Don't bother with exhaust wrapping. Why?

#1 - Wrapping keeps the heat in - which you might think would be good for greater flow velocity, but it in fact isn't - negligible almost, at best.
#2 - Wrapping can cause moisture buildup, especially where you live - and moisture = rust = bad.

If you are worried about noise, don't be. My first mod was y-pipe and the noise of my car hardly changed at all. Only at WOT at high RPMs I would hear a sucking noise which was actually quite nice... but then that got masked with the louder sucking noise from my JWT popcharger when I put that in.

80% of your sound difference will be from your choice of muffler. B-pipe accounts for 15% of the sound change. This is assuming that you keep the stock cat of course, which is what most people do.

nostrixoxide

Here is some excellent reading about header wraps. Try to keep in mind he is also talking about wrapping headers, not wrapping the exhaust for the purpose of noise reduction. Take a look at the chart for Jethot coatings & notice the "uncoated" tempatures for 2" above header & 1" below floor pan. Please note these tempatures are no where near the tempatures he is refering to that can destroy headers. Now take into account that your wanting to use it on your Y-pipe as a noise reduction not for heat protection.

http://www.centuryperformance.com/heatwraps.asp

1996blackmax

iTrader: (2)

That is good reading. I had actually read similar articles before I put the wrap on (in fact that one sounds familiar, I remember something about the Nascar vehicles), read several threads here on the Org, and finally spoke with Dallas from Warpspeed. He mentioned something along the lines (this was in early 03 so I will give the general idea of the conversation as I cannot remember the exact words) that they do not recommend that for any of their pipes. He mentioned that it was not good for the steel as it may prematurely rust due to holding in moisture and if not wrapped properly get some hot spots or something, and another of his concerns was the actual weakening of the welds, he also mentioned that I did have the stainless steel pipe which would be better than wrapping the aluminized steel (he also mentioned again that he did not recommend it). After reading up on the subject and speaking to him, I felt that I would give the wrap a shot anyway. As I was serioulsy considering taking the y-pipe off due to the bees buzzing. I felt that if I could get a few quiet years out of the pipe, I would be happy with that. The results were better than I expected. It was kinkd of embarrasing to drive around in a Maxima and sort of sound like I was driving an old VW Beetle (I actually have a soft spot for the old ones, but I still do not want my Max sounding like one). I did change out the wrap once, and the pipe looked good. I am pretty sure I will get a few more years out of it .