Background

Car is a 2001 SE, completely stock before this (minus the brake rotors, which aren't relevant here)


Installation

FSTB - was as easy as everyone says it is. Took 20 minutes, 5-10 minutes of which were spent looking for the 10mm socket. Fit and finish were both what you would expect for the price.

Intake - seemed like it was very high quality as far as the materials and finish. My only complaint was the fit. The support braces were about an inch or two off, so that I sort of had to pull the whole filter/MAF apparatus out a little to force the fit. I ended up leaving off the smaller, upper brace, as it required more pulling than I was willing to do.


Impressions

FSTB - big difference in handling versus stock. The car feels like a car now, rather than a school bus. The front end is noticeably stiffer and makes it much more comfortable to go around bends. No difference in ride quality, obviously. Wish I would have done this a year ago.

Intake - the first thing I noticed was a hissing sound. The interesting thing is that the hissing sound only happens when the accelerator is pressed about 25%-35% of the way down. It is seemingly not correlated to engine RPM, although I haven't tested that too much. Second thing I noticed was the awesome sound it makes when you really get on it. Makes the engine sound really mean above 3.5k RPM. No noticeable increase in power from the butt dyno.

 

hissing sound is the air passing through the butterfly valve. it's normal.

when i put in my intake, i only took the box out and didn't bother with anything else.

 

I left me sensor there also. Just removed the air box. Some people removed everything and zip tied the sensor to the intake. BTW...this was discussed many times before in past threads.

 

no it wasn't. i even tried searching!

 

Thanks - I'm assuming it's the air temp sensor, and that it can be left open in the engine bay. I better get rid of that question from my original post before the ***** get here.

 

so the front sway bar works nice? were did u get it from?

 

Front tower strut bar, not sway bar, our cars come stock with those.

FSTB's are are available on ebay and cattman.

 

Yeah FSTB = Front Strut Tower Bar

Highly recommended by me. I got mine directly from Stillen, although there are cheaper alternatives out there. I tried to get one from Cattman but he doesn't currently have any for the 00-01 maxima.