I was talking to a guy that owns a performance shop here that I frequently go to, whether it be for me or my buddies. I have been very impressed with his work so far and like working with him because he is very honest. I told him that I wanted to get a y-pipe for my Max and since he doesnt work on very many Maxima's he didnt know what a y-pipe was. He said he could just give me the full catback exhaust system. He said that would be just as good as the y-pipe, is that true? What exactly is a full catback exhaust? Help me out a little bit here, because he was pretty busy when we talked about this and he didnt get into detail about it. Just let me know if this would be a good mod or not. Thanks

 

A cat-back exhaust will NOT perform the same as a y-pipe. The cat-back exhaust replaces exhaust piping behind your catalytic converter. The y-pipe replaces the exhaust components in front of your catalytic converter. The big performance difference comes when the aftermarket y-pipe eliminates the two pre-catalytic converters found in the stock y-pipe. By eliminating the two pre-catalytic converters, you can see much bigger performance gains than you would if you just replaced the stock exhaust piping after the catalytic converter (the cat-back system). The y-pipe alone will add approx. 15 hp at the wheels, while the cat-back will make only half that at 8 hp, and with the cat-back, you run the risk of losing back pressure (thus losing a little torque) in the mid pipe of the cat-back.