Does you exhaust look like this?
 

I have like 160K miles on my car. The exhaust is now rattling every time I hit a speed bump or a bump in the road and it's starting to bother me. The main point of contact is from the little metal cross member you can see in the two pics on the left. I can also hear a knocking sound that sounds like it's coming from behind my center console. I've lived with that for two or three years, thouh. I'm just wondering if this is what you guys' cars look like underneath. My car came from Ohio before I got it, and I live in the south where it hasn't been exposed to even a grain of salt. I guess it spent three to three and a half years in OH, since it was manufactured in May 1997, IIRC.

For how much could I get away with new entire exhaust? Catback and y-pipe. Also, do you think Nissan still sells the hanger parts? I HAVE to get that rattle fix, or none of this stuff will be worth it to me, even with a little more power.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member.../2123711_8.jpghttp://memimage.cardomain.net/member.../2123711_9.jpghttp://memimage.cardomain.net/member...2123711_10.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...2123711_13.jpghttp://memimage.cardomain.net/member...2123711_14.jpg

holy huge sig.......LSSexhaust.com

WOW that thing is done time for upgrades.

ooohh well.....i guess your gonna have to buy a full cattman exhaust.

Mine looks worse (I'm at 175k). I just slapped some $2 radiator hose clamps from pep boys to hold the hanging pieces and it got rid of the noises. I put about 30k on the clamps they are holding well.

That's my kinda repair! :doublethu

Get a piece of heater hose slit it down the middle and slip it over the metal cross member. How my stock exhaust was set up. My whole hanger had rusted off and was banging the shizzle out of that bar. Put hose there and it fixed. I am even running this setup with my cattman exhaust since it sits right on top of the bar. I am having no noises what so ever from this.

Also take off that heat shield right after that cross member since it is hanging there.

So what exactly is heater hose? Where do I get it? Do you put it around the pipe or around that crossmember?

You can get it at lowes or home depot. It is like foam tubing almost. It is usually wrapped around PVC pipe for isnulation. Its a moderatly dark gray, and comes in about 8 foot sections. Unless he is talking about that other stuff. The other stuff, is black, tubing, and comes in the same lengths. Its used to wrap piping as is the other.

Awesome. I'm gonna pull the rest of that crap outta the way and put that stuff on ASAP. No more noise! Well, I'll still hear that noise I can hear from the front, but I can live with it. I just wish I could see what's making the noise.

thats just the heat shields.. when I was working at the shop.. people would come in all the time complaining about rattling noises from the exhaust and be worried that it would cost them a fortune to fix.. We always just pulled them off and send them on there way.. Never had a complaint after that and they would always come back after that cuz they new we weren't ripping people off.. I don't know why I'm giving a whole story.. I guess I'm bored at work but.. the moral of the story is ... JUST PULL ALL OF YOUR HEAT SHEILDS THAT ARE RATTLING OFF... if you have trouble use a long prybar.. no need to clamp it or put heater hose anywhere.. you don't need the heat shields that face the bottom of the car.. just the ones facing the underbody.. and even those you don't need. The only ones that are necessary are the one on the headers so the engine bay doesn't get heatsoaked.. the ones facing the floor are so you don't set any leaves on fire if you happen to park on dry leaves and grass or something.. wow I must be really bored..

Minimal,
Jack your car up and shake the exhaust (when its cool) that way you can find and fix the rattles. IMO your exhaust looks fine for a 9 almost 10 yo car, drive it til the muffler blows out. Thats what I did, h3ll when the muffler blew it sounded kinda cool for a while then I replaced the whole exhaust from the cat back for a few hundred dollars.

I have, man. It's definitley smacking that little cross bar thing. Way more than just the remains of the the heat shield is rattling. THe heat shield started leaving me maybe two years ago. I fully plan to roll until the exhaust is busted, now that I know what to do to eliminate that noise. But I hear another noise inside the car from somewhere near the fire wall. I can't shake the exhaust with enough force to hear that sound, though.

yup time for them upgrades...

mine looks like that...a little better, but close. but hey, what kind of car is that grey one in your sig? G35?

hey quick question about a y-pipe ive searched for it in the stickeys with no luck, but i just got my Y-pipe in the mail today and it doesnt quite look like the regular y-pipe. i guess it would be a f-pipe. i have a 1999 cali spec, now is this right or wrong???

Max_Out of course it doenst look like the regular y-pipe...it's aftermarket. It's designed to flow different and better than stock. You did get the correct pipe for your cali spec right?

Yeah my exhaust looks like that. I finally got under the car to inspect last week when looking into installing my cattman b and d@mn....I'm in big need to upgrade haha

ya mine is the exact same and i cannot take any bolts off anywhere, the bolts have deformed into a wide arrange of odd shapes and rusted to hell, so my next mod will have to be a full catback with a ypipe.:jump:

looks normal to me.... seriously it aint that bad.... plug up the muffler and see if it leaks anywhere

Do you know what heater hose is? It a black hose. If you look inside your engine bay you will see it. It like connects from your intake into your engine and such. I would take a picture only if I wasnt at my pappaws and if i had a camera on me. It will lay on the cross member

Listen to him and your gonna have a car fire. This stuff doesnt wrap anything. It used for cars.

Also just wondering but do you have a bracket between your y pipe and the cat convertor? It a bracket and 2 rubber bushings hang on it to support your y pipe

my car has 114K and the whole damn exhaust is 5x worse than that. Not like it's something to brag about :) It was a damn good excuse to buy a full Cattman exhaust....can't wait to install it!

well i know it doesnt look like the stock y-pipe with the precats. what i was wondering about is the shape, most ive seen look like _/_/ and the one i got looks like _/_... if ya kinda catch the jist lol. i think i have the right one but not sure. oh and to contribute something to this thread, your exhuast looks ok, no the best but not bad. there is only so much some one can tell from pics. if you can hear the leak, see the leak, or just suspect one and wanna go aftermarket, go for it.

Im still kind of confused by what you mean but as long as the pipe fits on your car, has the correct spots for O2's and is cali spec then the pipe is fine. No worries.

my exhaust looked like that, it was all rusted, same with my y-pipe. now its much nicer, all painted with vht flat silver.

yeah i wish my exhaust looked like that. it has 105k and been driven in the snow since 1997.
when i crawled under it to fix the parking brake a few weeks back id brush the pipes and get debris. well new catback is on the way:mardi:

Is he referring to what's called the down pipe?

yes i am but a down pipe is usually a term associated with a turbo application. in essence its the same piece. what i'm worried about is what you might have been saying. one end is the end that gos to the cat then the pipe that goes to the header of the 1,3,5, cylinders, then the next pipe is what i'm worried about it just goes straight, and doesn't turn upward like the first pipe. i do have a Cali spec car, now is this what it should look like.

Wouldn't you be smelling burnt rubber afterwards if you put a split heater hose over that cross member bar? Wouldn't the B-pipe melt it ?

Nope heater hose is pretty strong stuff.

Now when you say "heater hose", do you mean piping insulation? That stuff comes in rubber and polyurethane. You would be referring to the rubber stuff, right?

Or do you mean this stuff?:
http://www.goodyearbeltsandhose.com/cars/moldheat.html

That the stuff I am talking about. Here I will go take a picture of how mine currently set up. The stuff that other newbie was talking about would make a fire.

Not the best pic since it dark and my car isnt jacked up but it gets to the point.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../Maxima097.jpg

That seems like it'd work. It looks like it might come off, though. I guess I'd tie it on with something. So you that elminates the noise, eh? I guess it would still knock against it a little, you just wouldn't hear it. I think that's what I'm gonna get.

Hose clamps will hold it down for sure.

The last time I put that cross bar on it it touched the pipe and transmitted noise right into the cabin. Will the heater hose stop that or will a small amount be transmitted still?

I hear absolutely no noise what so ever ever since I put that piece of heater hose there. On my stock setup I actually tied the exhaust down onto the cross member so it couldnt jump around and the rubber would not come out. Just got a piece of wire and made a x type shape across the pipe.

Sounds good! I'll give that hose a try as well!

i took it to my local shop and had a hanger put there. 15 bucks and no problem since. and i still have alittle slack so nothin gets broke

Wow! There's an org member in Andalusia! LA representin'!

So there is danger of the exhaust breaking if there's no slack? I put some radiator hose over that piece of metal and put a hose clamp around all that junk, the metal the, hose, and the pipe! Oh well, if it breaks, that'll be my cue to buy the full Cattman exhaust.

my exhaust is all rusty and old. The middle hanger on the y-pipe broke and mine is being held up by hose clamps. The muffler aslo rusted off and is being held on with some more rubber gasketing and hose clamps. I had to put some peices of rubber in between some metal because I was getting some nice GONGS when I went over bumps. It's been this way for about 6 months and seems to still work fine.

BTW, I'm a cheap bastard.

Dont worry your exhaust isnt going to break right over the cross member. Exhaust isnt going to break unless you catch it on something.

So you put something on the cross member? Did it eliminate the noise?