I found this site from an ad on ebay. SSAUTOCHROME.COM
About half way down the page they have some stainless headers and a y-pipe for under 300 bucks. Looks like a good deal, anyone have any comments about the company.

 

2 of my friends with 240s have their catback exhausts. They essentially make cheaper replicas, and the quality seemed nice.

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ght=autochrome

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=ebay+headers

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=ebay+headers

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=ebay+headers

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=ebay+headers

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=ebay+headers

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=ebay+headers

 

I've heard about them now....

And Puppetmaster, you are a nut.

 

They are right near Raleigh NC, i think. As far as quality, all the 240sx guys whose cars i work on talk mad ****, but none of them have tried the stuff; but i guess you get what you pay for. It's gotta be better than pacesttter. Maybe someone with lotsa cash can guinea pig some stuff.
I heard their turbo kits are ok (piping, etc.) but the actual turbos leak. I'm trying to find a 240 customer that don't give a rip to try a turbo kit out. anyhoo, my 2 cents.

 

It appears that most of the people that tried it out had a 5th gen and weren't really happy with the actual gains. A couple people said the 4th gen had gains... which is the model I have, not sure if i want to invest 300 bucks in a louder exhuast and no gains. The average person spends that to make their exhuast quieter.
Thanks Puppetmaster

 

I didn't realize I only posted 5th Gen links.

There are no significant gains from these headers on a 4th Gen, but the y-pipe does give you a little something, just as much as a Cattman, Stillen, Budget, Warpspeed, etc. IMO, its not worth going through the hassle of replacing the stock manifolds with manifolds that won't gain more than a couple hp.

See these threads:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=284186

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=437294

 

They're chrome plated stock manifolds.

 

I have their 2.5" catback system and honestly i have not heard anything that sounds as nice...granted i have not heard an actual cattman etc.. in person. I think it is great quality and i have been very happy with the way it sounds. My butt dyno noticed some power gains especially with my CAI. LCF from this board has heard my car so he could testify that it sounds awesome. deep and throaty and no raspy noise. Little to no drone depending on throttle and whatnot.

 

If ya get a chance, maybe you could post an audio/video clip of your exhaust here: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=407975

I'm sure the quality of some of their stuff is decent, they just didn't do the headers right for the 4th and 5th Gens....

 

my buddy bought a turbo exhaust manifold for a b18 since it was cheap. well the welds cracked on barely 10lbs of boost.

 

How long ago did he get that maifold? Word is that they (SSAC) are on their 3rd genartaion of development for their products; meaning stuff is mo' betta' now due to improvements based on customer feedback.
Plus the other word is that they fab up the prototypes and final designs themselves then send them overseas to asia someplace to be mass produced.

Disclaimer: these "words" came from my buddy who is a 240sx customer and is sort of keeping an eye on SSAC to see if he wants to try thier turbo kit for his car.

 

LUXBOND has these and the fitment was better than the hotshots on his set and the gains were simlar (not he has swapped these, hotshots and oem about 5 times) pm him if u want more info

 

My friend has an ssautochrome o2 sensor for his eclipse GSX, and after a few weeks, the welds snapped due to the weight of the downpipe, the wierd thing is that its an aftermarket downpipe which weighs 65% less than stock and still broke the welds. I also heard some bad things about how the turbo actually rips off of the ssautochrome exhaust manifold.

 

I didn't know they made o2 sensors

 

His dyno numbers with the eBay headers were comparable to stock numbers, how can you say that the gains were similar to Hotshots? Most 6 speeds with Hotshots have dynoed between 225-235 whp compared to 205 stock.

 

his dyno numbers with his hotshots were lower then stock so get off your high horse

 

Must've been a blue moon, because he's by far the ONLY A33B VQ35DE that dyno'd lower than stock with HotShots.

 

he probably means O2 sensor housing


and yes, SSACs parts fabrication = crap plain and simple.

 

I know ... I was just being a smarta.s.s.

 

I stand corrected, I did mean o2 sensor housing.

 

he bought the manifold towards the end of the summer. we laffed when he bought the manifold and laffed even harder when it cracked.

 

laffy taffy ...

 

Why are we still discussing ssautocrap?

 

Cuz dEy mAd tYte y0!

 

No thanks, I like the view from up here. :

If your statement is true, then like Nmexmax said, it is anomalous because I've yet to see that happen to anyone else. Got dynos? Just need verification is all.

 

be glad you got the help upfront. I didnt get the memo. DIdnt have search yet and bought them, the y pipe was over one inch away from meeting the flange on either pipe. If one was hooked up, the other COULDNT be. Stay away...and i have a fourth gen

 

HEY, sounds like you guys got some bum products from them, but this is my experience with them:

I got a set of Headers for a V8 Toyota Tundra and for the price I was RIDICULOUSLY happy, I left good comments on there website and e-bay, I was really impressed with the VALUE of the product, they were stainless with thick flanges and nice welds and lined up PERFECT, just like they said, the gasket seemed like basic aftermarket ones, steel impregenated fiber or something, so I bought the factory thin steel sheet type, no biggie. The only complaint I had: I called them several times because I should have gotten a god damn sticker with my headers, I was always polite yet called and e-mailed alot and I never got any stickers, I still harbor a mean grudge for that, so screw it, yeah, they do suck, they didn't even make the headers so there stuff is probably all garbage!

 

WTF...so you are happy with their product but don't like them because they didn't give you a.....sticker???

 

Because as everyone knows on the board, stickers add 10WHP.

 

You you liked the V8 headers, no probelms? Feel any gains with the ol' butt-dyno?

Forget stickers, i don't pay $ to advertise for people, i should be paid to do that

 

No problems at all, best part is a freind of my dads argued with him to death, saying that "theres no way he's back at your house right now putting headers on that truck without putting any other exhaust parts on, theres no way there going to fit, he's going to have to cut and weld! After I finished the job, I called a toyota dealer up to get a price, keep in mind it's 2wd which makes it way easier, they said because it wouldn't line up to the stock exhaust they wouldn't take the job because there was a lot of cutting and welding involved! BUT they said they'll give me a figure to compare with other toyota dealers, $900-1,100!!!

No cutting, No welding, I was done in an afternoon, it was a 12-pack job and I was done! Yeah I definitly noticed a seat of the pants difference, nothing major, but it's nice on start up, and even when revving it in nuetral I could notice a difference.

 

didn't quite understand that last part man...

 

KRRZ350,
A question - did you put the SS headers on a 4th Gen Max or Infiniti ? Your information showed both a '96 I30 and '04 I35.........

The Ebay listing claims they have redesigned the 4th Gen product, and gives a link to VQpower showing a dyno claiming lots of hp gains.. What did you think of the quality of the product if that's what you installed ??

 

Look at the design, its still a short length header. Let's put SSA asside for a second. I will say that I do not think all of there products are crap. They have copied some things pretty well, and some of them seem to last. This is not an issue of SSA producing a pure crap product. Its the design of the product that sucks. Doesn't matter if Cattman started making them this way, they still would not be a good design. Those that have been around long enough to remember Don in Texas before he started ripping people off... He experimented with a design just like this. Ended up spending a bunch of money getting stock headers extrude honed for better flow. Guess what he gained? 1 HP over stock. Stillen also played around with short length headers, and they produced no MEANINGFUL extra power over stock headers. The one instance where this might gain over stock headers is on the 3.5L motor. It needs the extra flow, and getting rid of the pre-cats, which the Y-pipe alone does not do on the 5.5gen and up, or on the Cali spec, would likely be advantagous and worth a few more HP. Its still not going to perform as well as Cattman or Hotshot EQUAL length headers. In fact, you would likely get similiar results by swapping 4th gen headers on the 3.5L and using a Fed-spec Y-pipe, saving your money for something else. I'll say it again, THE MANUFACTURE DOES NOT MATTER, ITS THE DESIGN THAT SUCKS. Some people also had trouble getting them to fit properly, as well as having there own Y-pipe not mate up properly with the headers. This is strikes 3 & 4 in my book, 1-3 already happened with the poor design. As stated above, the VQpower website is not selling these as VQpower on ebay, someone else is using the screen name. Now can we get off this subject and let the thread die? There are not too many peices of this dead horse left to beat.

 

Everybody dogs the ssac because they are shorty. If you look inside the stock manifolds then you know it's imposible to not get good gains with these. To get proper dyno results after a header swap you need to tune also. another thing is, it's about a 60lb weight reduction.

I purchased the ss headers and couldn't be happier. The fitment was perfect, it came with all the gaskets and hardware. has a slightly deeper exhaust tone with the stock piping. and the butte dyno showed significant gains.

Sorry I never dyno'd before and after, I wanted to but the damn dyno shop around here canceled three appts wit me and I couldn't wait for the install.

For the 260.oo I paid wich is about what you would pay for a cattman Y I was very pleased. You pay about the same and the ss Y is almost Identical to the cattman. The advantage is you also get rid of the giant precats also.

I've been running mine for aobut 5 months and have no complaints.

But, if you do have the $ then get hotshot. they look better and have proof of good gains.

At the same time if you are thinking about getting a Y-pipe, spend the same money on ss headers


this is on a 3.5...don't know about others

 

i've got that headers/y-pipe set up on my car. excellent quality, fitment was PERFECT. like nismo said, gains are similiar to hotshot, but fitment is better. i would def recommend them.

 

so a 3.5 it shows gains, the 4th gen it wouldnt even bolt on on my set.